The Barclays Premier League Thread 2014/2015

[Matt]

I don't think forcing clubs to have more shit English players is going to make the premier league any better :/

[Kyle]

I appreciate what the FA are trying to do here but this is not going to help the quality of the league one bit. This is going to seriously limit clubs abilities to match the top European teams, which is already a problem to begin with.

[brenchill]

I think this will just lead to the big clubs bringing in loads of 14 and 15 year olds. Ridiculous.

[King Ellis]

Instead of offering a house and car bonus, they'll be handing out White Lightning and a peek at the Chairman's PA when she's bending over to get a file.

[Matt]

Adam Johnson is excited at the prospect though

[stokeriño]

Oh good, up the ante on English players - and especially U16s - just as the Premier League's income is heading towards its zenith.

That will totally solve all of England's problems and not at all exacerbate several of the extremely problematic issues that already exist with the Premier League, such as clubs paying squillions for the most mediocre of homegrown talent, or hoovering up all the Croatian 14 year olds they can find, while yet more teenage English footballers coast along with all the money, cars and soap-opera-actress girlfriends they could ever want, knowing that they never really need to improve beyond the age of 20 or so.

It's little more than basic supply-and-demand economics, but the FA know little about basic anything, so eh.

[TCO]

Right so currently we have Chelsea and signing almost every half decent foreign 16 year olds and now you want to move that age back to 14? What an idiotic response to a problem that can't be solved with home grown player rules. We live in a footballing economy where Andy Carroll costs more than Karim Benzema and 18 year old Luke Shaw and all his 60 senior league appearances are worth £30mil. All this is going to do is drive up already inflated value of English players, giving them more money to play shit football and be entitled pricks who achieve nothing, ala Wilshere and Carroll.

The cream rises to the top, it always does. Premier League clubs will sign and play English players if they're good enough. Germany didn't go and win the World Cup by forcing their teams to field inferior domestic players, they invested at the in the right places and it paid dividends. I just never got the mentality of forcing teams to play homegrown players. Alright, they'll get more game time, but the league's quality will dip and that'll have a knock on effect. This isn't going to produce more Harry Kanes, it's going to produce more Andy Carrolls, Jack Rodwells and Scott Sinclairs.

[Nerf]

Why don't they just match the UEFA rules of having eight homegrown players including at least four "club trained." The 17 cut off is fine, there's absolutely no reason to lower that to 15. If they REALLY wanted to, they could match La Liga and enforce a two player non-EU rule, but that's stretching.

[Colly]

Right so currently we have Chelsea and signing almost every half decent foreign 16 year olds and now you want to move that age back to 14? What an idiotic response to a problem that can't be solved with home grown player rules. We live in a footballing economy where Andy Carroll costs more than Karim Benzema and 18 year old Luke Shaw and all his 60 senior league appearances are worth £30mil. All this is going to do is drive up already inflated value of English players, giving them more money to play shit football and be entitled pricks who achieve nothing, ala Wilshere and Carroll.

The cream rises to the top, it always does. Premier League clubs will sign and play English players if they're good enough. Germany didn't go and win the World Cup by forcing their teams to field inferior domestic players, they invested at the in the right places and it paid dividends. I just never got the mentality of forcing teams to play homegrown players. Alright, they'll get more game time, but the league's quality will dip and that'll have a knock on effect. This isn't going to produce more Harry Kanes, it's going to produce more Andy Carrolls, Jack Rodwells and Scott Sinclairs.

The idea it would produce 'more Harry Kanes' is the most absurd thing. Harry Kane is where he is by outperforming Spurs other strikers, if he'd been slot in two years ago because they weren't allowed any foreigners he'd be half the player with twice as many cars...

[TCO]

The only reason the non-EU rule works in La Liga without limiting the quality is because South American players get Spanish citizenship in 2 years. It's fine as it is. England just need to stop producing shit players, not force clubs to play them.

Wales managed to produce Gareth Bale and Aaron Ramsey without stupid rules in the same system. Two players who'd walk into the England team.

[Jimmy]

To be fair, it's not quite as simple as that. Can only speak from the Spurs players I've been watching, but their progress has undoubtably been accelerated by Poch showing faith in them and playing. There's every chance under a different manager that Ryan Mason would be out on loan again in the championship, at best, but instead he's in the England squad.

[TCO]

The main thing England should be working on is the warped relationship the national team has with the media and the damaging psychological effects that it has on the manager and players, heading into major competitions.

[Lineker]

Fuck the national team. Seriously. Who cares.

[Colly]

To be fair, it's not quite as simple as that. Can only speak from the Spurs players I've been watching, but their progress has undoubtably been accelerated by Poch showing faith in them and playing. There's every chance under a different manager that Ryan Mason would be out on loan again in the championship, at best, but instead he's in the England squad.

But again that's because Mason has earned his place. If the likes of Bentaleb or whoever weren't in the squad at all he would've been in earlier, playing against other inferior 'more English' teams, before making the England squad and being blitzed by teams made up of players who've been playing with and against actual top level players week in week out rather than an artificial construct of 'top' English players. Poch should be commended, but if Mason hadn't performed he'd be out of the team like anyone else. As a Newcastle fan I'd much rather see Riviere get a proper chance than see Carver persist with shoving a clearly not ready Armstrong into games.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Ultra Rare Colly

[TCO]

That's exactly it. The proposal would only work if good English players were being held back because of foreign players or clubs had a vendetta to not play English players or something. If they're good enough they'll play. See Kane, Stones, Barkley, Sterling etc. Theres nothing stopping English players playing abroad either.

Just imagine how much Andy Carroll would've cost in a market where half your players had to be English?

[The Lusophone]

I don't even think there's a problem with young English talent coming through either, tbh. If Man United can manage to play James Wilson 12 times in the League this season, even with RVP, Rooney, Falcao and arguably Fellaini ahead of him in his position then it really looks like the FA are coming up with a solution to a problem that doesn't seem to exist.

Like others have said, there are much better ways to try to improve the national side than to handicap our domestic leagues.

[Gazz]

In 2008, Uefa data showed that England had just 2,769 Uefa (Pro, A or B) licenced coaches compared to 34,970 in Germany, 29,240 in Italy and 23,995 in Spain.

There's your problem.

[Rafael]

But, by doing that, wouldn't teams be forced to try and improve their youth coaching? Buying a 17-year-old foreign ''wonderkid'' is a gamble already but buying a 14-year-old isn't really worth the risk, I think.

[Colly]

Tell that to Barcelona.

[Rafael]

True.