Young English Talent

by Paul
(Sussex)

I write this article after the England under 21's hammered Azerbajan 7-0 which raises some questions.
First of all the constant arguement that foreign players in this country are keeping young English players from making the breakthrough into the first teams of their clubs.
Well, that may be true in some cases and I would'nt try and say it wasn't, but it does'nt seem to have harmed the England under 21 team too severly.

In the last tournament our boy's got to the semi finals and were very unlucky to lose on penalties to a very good Dutch side.
Now this summers tournament is upon us I think we have a very good chance of going all the way this time, when you have players of the calibre of Mancienne, Noble, Walcott, Onuhua and so on - I don't see how this argument stands up.
Yes ok maybe we don't have the numbers avaliable that we have had in the past but so what?
Even with the greater number of players to pick from we have had in the past how many major tournaments have we won?
Excatly - just the one glorious moment in 1966.
My personal view is that although there are not as many young english players coming through, the ones that are making it are of an extremly high standard and are good enough to play in any of the top leagues in Europe.
Take for example John Terry who came through the ranks at Chelsea and became a regular along side some world class defenders, proving that if you are good enough you will get your opportunity, as im sure Micheal Mancienne will too as he is a player who i believe has the ability to go on and be one of the top centre backs in the country.
People will argue that we dont have the strength in depth when it comes to the international stage, but i'm not convinced that Spain, Italy, Germany and France do either.
Look the French team at the moment, they have a league that has a large number of homegrown players and yet they are struggling quite badly at the moment, yes they will probably quilify for the World Cup in South Africa next year but they wont win it, they have gone a stale and its not working for them at the moment.
Spain of course are the best team in the world at the moment and rightly so, but take away Torres, Villa, Puyol and Iniesta and would they still be that good? I'm not so sure, they would still be a force definatly but good enough to win a world cup, no not for me.
Then we get to the Germans and the Italians both counties seem to struggling with the standard of their domestic leagues the last few years espcially the Italians, although the German sides did play some marvellous football in this years UEFA Cup.
These two nations will be a force to be feared in the world cup but i dont think either will win it, so back to the original point I do believe English football will be fine as long as we keep producing high quality players and not just put through young players who arent good enough just so we can say "oh look how many homegrown players we bring through".