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Yellow Wal

What is it about foreign players?

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Spurs have broken their transfer record three times, Sunderland have bought a pocket load of Italians, French players, Dutch players, Scandinavian players are going everywhere, even African, Asian and American are coming in all ways.

Haven''t we got any players in this country who can play the game or isn''t anyone prepared to give them a chance?

I can only think of a handful of transfers involving British players and we have bought two of them and for nowhere near the fees paid for the foreigners.

What are we doing wrong?

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[quote user="Yellow Wall"]

Haven''t we got any players in this country who can play the game I can only think of a handful of transfers involving British players and we have bought two of them and for nowhere near the fees paid for the foreigners.

What are we doing wrong?[/quote]

English football is years behind the rest of the world.. no we don''t have anyone who can play in this country! The reason the likes of Lampard, Gerrard, Cole etc dont go abroad is because sitting on the bench with the odd reserve game doesnt appeal....There are one or 2 exceptions of true quality (Bale, Gascoigne, Linekar) who go abroad and will shine.. the rest would be lucky to even get a ticket on a match day!

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The problem has little to do with nationality. It''s to do with the league they play in. It''s a well known fact that very few British/English players ply their trade in a foreign top division. What this means is that you have to buy British/English players from within England, and England''s second division is financially alot stronger than many foreign top flights! Most championship clubs don''t need to sell cheaply, so the price is always significantly higher. 

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well for a start lots of them have got really cool names, lots of them have dark Mediterranean good looks that shallow woman who don''t look beneath the surface seem to go for...and  lots of them are technically better than english players for half the price , whats not to like ?  [:D]

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You didn''t watch the Under 21 European Championships this summer then? Perhaps go and have a look at the results. To save you time, we lost to Italy, Norway and Israel, scored one goal which was a penalty, and the only player to get any credit in the media was Nathan Redmond. 
There isn''t exactly an abundance of British talent about. The best young players get snapped up by Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd. 
Out of what''s left we did very well to get Nathan Redmond, but there aren''t many great British talents around. 
Out of the Championship there are one or two with PL potential emerge each season, Will Hughes and Tom Ince are the only ones to have potential international class, and if you aren''t international class you aren''t true Premier League class. We consistently churn out good centre midfielders, the odd good winger, but we have no top class defenders or strikers on the horizon. 
All of the current top English youngsters are midfielders or wide players.... Wilshire, Sterling, Redmond, Ince, Moses, Zaha, Ward-Prowse, Barclay. Can add a left back Shaw and possibly a goalkeeper in Hart. 
But we don''t produce top defenders, don''t produce top strikers - Rooney the one top class striker of our generation. Shearer was the last before that. Ashton had the potential but who knows. Where is the next Rooney? There isn''t one, our hopes are pinned on Harry Kane and Connor Wickham.... those are our Under 21 strikers. Is there any better way to illustrate how crap we are then to give you those two names and tell you that they are the best young strikers we can find?
Spain, Italy, Germany, even Belgium and Denmark at the minute, and Holland will all be head and shoulders above us. France will be crap like us at least. We face a decade of remaining a second rate nation in international competition, we have to make up for that by having the best domestic league, and we are only going to have the best domestic league if the teams buy the best players on the market. Most of whom are not English.
That''s the reality. 

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Fook me that was a long diatribe about what is wrong, so what''s needed to put it right?

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[quote user="Vanwink"]Fook me that was a long diatribe about what is wrong, so what''s needed to put it right?[/quote]
Well he asked two questions, one was: "Haven''t we got any players in this country who can play the game or isn''t anyone prepared to give them a chance?"
I answered that one.
But this what: "What are we doing wrong?" - That''s one that a Premier League manager needs to answer. But whatever we do will take years to take effect. We''ve built that huge FA facility but throwing money at a problem doesn''t always fix it, we invested hundreds of millions into tennis and Andy Murray ended up coming out of Spain.
Banning games consoles and rationing the internet would be a start. Perhaps the FA need to work out why so many players come out of Merseyside and the North East, and then try and work out why there are other regions (like ours) that don''t pull their weight. 

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Coaching of youngsters in this country is not working, we need to take a leaf out of the spaniards book and rewrite the coaching manuals.

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[quote user="Vanwink"]Fook me that was a long diatribe about what is wrong, so what''s needed to put it right?[/quote]
One of the biggest steps has already been taken. The FA have recently made changes to the sizes of pitches and the amount of players a team can have based on age, at younger ages you play on smaller pitches with less players. This makes you more likely to get touches of the ball and (hopefully) encourages technical development and a more possession based mindset. The Dutch implemented this system like 20 years ago, most of Europe followed suit and several (British) sports journalist pushed for this about a decade ago, the FA have just acted. This (along with the development of a massive coaching centre at St. Georges) should lead to more technically gifted kids and more qualified coaches to teach them. This is a long term thing however, we won''t notice any results for at least a decade, probably longer.

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Do they still,start playing 11 a side when they are 11 years old Phillip, or has that been changed now?

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[quote user="Herman "]Much better coaching at a young age is a start.[/quote]Pretty much that and the need for better dieting with less smoking and alcohol consumption.

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[quote user="Vanwink"]Do they still,start playing 11 a side when they are 11 years old Phillip, or has that been changed now?[/quote]
Under 11''s and under 12''s now play 9 vs 9 games. 
I recommend checking out the ''benefit of the 9 vs 9'' page, it outlines what the FA hopes to achieve using this system. It''s a good step in the right direction, but will take years to come to fruition.

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Phil

l have found serious failings with the case of mini Soccer. l have witnessed this whilst watching my son play. when starting with 5-a-side it a team has a player that is gifted or just a bit more developed earlier they dominate a game and thus the other players barely get a touch also.

Snake

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Well that''s a step I the right direction Phillip, question is are they playing 9v9 on big pitches, in which case it''s a waste of time. Will check out the link mate, maybe jumping to conclusions.

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Yeh I had a look thanks. It''s a start isn''t it. You know the idea of 11 year olds playing 11 a side and hoofing it up a big pitch is so ridiculous it''s amazing it was allowed to go on for so long, how on earth do kids get to practice close control under those conditions.

We still have miles to go though

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Give an English kid a football and he will whack it at the goalgive a spanish kid a football and he will stat dribbling, doing keep ups or pass it.... I read an article on line a year or so ago about a spanish team who when the players get to 13/14 they take the goals away in training.... No "Next goal wins" or small sided matches.. constant passing, moving, pressing... working on player organisation, communication and discipline... it makes them hungrier to find that goal on a saturday morning in a match...it works...

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[quote user="Vanwink"]Well that''s a step I the right direction Phillip, question is are they playing 9v9 on big pitches, in which case it''s a waste of time. Will check out the link mate, maybe jumping to conclusions.[/quote]
9v9 games are played on smaller pitches. 80 yards long, 50 yards wide, around 20 yards shorter than a regular pitch but the same width. The youngest age group, U7 and U8, will play 5v5 games on pitches that are 40 yards long and 30 yards wide. The pitches and team sizes increase with age in order to put more importance on the ''team'' rather than the individual, and also to get the most out of their increasing physical talents.
And in response to Snake, I will just say that no system is perfect, there will always be failings. But this system has been shown to be highly effective in other countries and is considered far preferable to the alternative (kids playing with adult equipment means that the biggest, strongest, fastest kids always have an advantage.) Whatever we are currently doing in this country is obviously failing, so it can''t hurt to attempt a successful system in the chance it might improve us, right?

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We played 11 a side in Germany from 6 years old, however no one played hoofball!

We were taught passing and ballskills from a very early age!

It is more down to coaching and ethos than simply how many players per side.

The Germans seemed to do ok and still do.

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[quote user="snake-eyes"]We played 11 a side in Germany from 6 years old, however no one played hoofball!

We were taught passing and ballskills from a very early age!

It is more down to coaching and ethos than simply how many players per side.

The Germans seemed to do ok and still do.[/quote]
Coaching is very important, no one is disputing that, and the FA us trying to address this via training courses at the national football centre. The pitch size and squad size is very important though. As I said, the Dutch have used a similar system to great effect, so has France and several other European countries. 
If you don''t mind me asking, (and please don''t feel pressured to answer this) how old are you? I ask this as if you are older, you may have missed the massive revamp in German youth development that has happened over the past decade when you were being coached. 

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That is not to say that l think 11 a side Is right at younger ages!

l like to use 5 a side as a training tool, but prefer at least 7 asside As Matches as it encourages passing the ball and teamwork.

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Snake, I didn''t mean it was down to the number of players, what I meant was important was the space the kids have to play in. They need small spaces where they are under a bit of pressure to develop ball skills, but yes I agree with you, the coaching attitude is vital

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I have seen training sessions with kids in Spain Phillip, it''s all about control and working in tight spaces.

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Thanks for the answer Snake. As I''ve said, the pitch size and team size is just one step, it encourages players to get used to the ball at an early age and will hopefully make them more comfortable in possession. No one is saying that this is going to completely change English football, and it''s obvious that there aren''t enough qualified coaches in this country. It''s going to take alot of hard work at both a local and national level to implement the changes England needs to catch up to other nations, we''re trying to catch up on almost 20 years of progress in under a decade, and this is just one step in the right direction. The FA in England is notoriously conservative, but they deserve credit for pushing through this revamp of youth football. Hopefully, with more qualified coaches, smaller pitches and teams which emphasizes technique over size and  that we can spend more time coaching younger players (I think that German and Spanish children receive something like 1,000 more hours coaching than English kids), England will finally be able to compete with some of the truly strong nations (although I won''t get my hopes up!)

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[quote user="Phillip J Fry"] (I think that German and Spanish children receive something like 1,000 more hours coaching than English kids)[/quote]
This is obviously wrong. I''ll try to find the actual numbers later. 

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[quote user="Phillip J Fry"][quote user="Phillip J Fry"] (I think that German and Spanish children receive something like 1,000 more hours coaching than English kids)[/quote]
This is obviously wrong. I''ll try to find the actual numbers later. 
[/quote]
Huh. I was closer than I thought I was. From an article by Henry Winter of the telegraph:
''On average, a young player in Spain will have enjoyed 4,880 hours contact time with an elite club such as Barcelona from the ages of nine to 21. Holland and France pour even more time into coaching youngsters, 5,940 hours and 5,740 hours respectively. An English tyro will have only 3,760.''

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