Tragic Football Stories - Let us Kick Around the misshapen Jabulani that is English football right here

xp Try telling that to Bernie Taupin...

Squad capped at 25 is not a new idea, i think, and yeah all for it.

Of course it'd have to apply to the premier league to achieve anything, and there's almost no incentive for the premier league to agree to it. Which seems to be the problem with English football in a nutshell.

Well quite. And expecting any new law to be followed in spirit rather than pushed to a meaningless breaking point is optimistic given the current climate. Now the question is, how far could the FA push the Premier League in theory, and why does it choose not to do so. DJ Shadow answers coming up after this break.

Man utd and Chelsea would just break it with impunity anyway

am I right that teams have to submit their 25 man league squads next season? Except you can play all the players under X age (I forget) you want. Will this make any difference?

how far could the FA push the Premier League in theory

Is the ångström still a unit of measurement?

cunt-hair is workable

Prefer ba' hair

am I right that teams have to submit their 25 man league squads next season? Except you can play all the players under X age (I forget) you want. Will this make any difference?

i think they're some stipulations about those under-25's, whether they're developed by the club, brought in, brought in from abroad, w/e. gets complicated.

This is like the Football League rules that I abuse on FM 2010 but having 4 crappy homegrown dudes on my subs bench every match, right?

Yeah.

Was the thinking behind having 7 subs and not 5 iirc

I think the foreigners debate is worth having but not in the Blatter 6+5 or the 'I'm a racist Sun reader but' sense. I just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers. Was John Utaka really worth spending all that money on? Couldn't Portsmouth have spent 1/50th of his wages+bonus+transferfee+agentkickbacks to improve their academy and potentially get a decent striker or three come through every year? What do Mido and Benni McCarthy offer West Ham that Sears and Hines don't, other than limited ability to move away from a pie stand? Southampton were able to create at least 2 wingers of Champions League ability in the past 10 years, the type of players that earned them 10m each, so they use that money to buy Papa Waigo? Is there really no more Bales or Walcotts coming through with the same coaching staff and techniques, so you go for Papa fucking Waigo instead? Or does the giant Senegalise population of Southampton bring in extra needed revenue?

Basically my point is our academies and coaching may suck but really they cannot suck so much that John Utaka seems a valid option ahead of them, surely? Until all academies in the country get to the point where they notice that they can make a Champions League ability player (which Theo is and Bale will be next season) instead of closing your eyes on Football Manager and clicking at random until you find your next signing, English football can get tae fuck. We will continue to have the Gerrard-Lampard debate because there is no-one else of the top quality to make the fucking first eleven, let alone the squad, let alone Premiership teams.

I just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers

very much my point from earlier on. Redknapp style payoffs from agents?

What do Mido and Benni McCarthy offer West Ham that Sears and Hines don't, other than limited ability to move away from a pie stand?

consider this english-football imaginary board excelsiored

lol tho theo walcott is not a champion's league quality player

As of next season-

Clubs have to declare an A squad of which 8 must be trained (3 years in the country before the age of 21, i.e. buying a player from abroad at 17 is fine but as Brazilian's can't travel till 18, Rafael or Denilson for example, do not count) within the UK and 4 of those must be trained by the club itself. They may also declare a B squad of any youngsters under 21.

just don't understand what football teams get from buying the majority of foreign footballers

*splutter*

All morning now I've been thinking "ten two-footed dudes who can pass short" is the way to go, really.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:09 (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

england don't have ten of these guys- by the time they get to full-international age they've all given up and gone breadman

― ,,,,,,eeeeleon (darraghmac), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:12 (29 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I should be posting this in the other thread, soz.

― Mertesacker Emptiness (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 29 June 2010 11:12 (0 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

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Clearly England don't, I was positing it as some kind of development plan.

I know you are trolling so I won't go into it but I was thinking of smaller clubs making money or having top class players (and as lol as me saying it is, anyone who plays for a top 3 side usually = top class) come through their academy. Whether that guy who has demolished teams such as Liverpool and Barcelona and Porto in the CL is of that quality or not then you decide whether to troll or not. :)

teams such as Liverpool, you say?

Tom top level players are different. I can obviously understand what Torres or Drogba add. Or as I said in the other thread, Wigan's ability to buy foreigners makes perfect sense. But what has Newcastle's proven track record of buying from outside the country added to their game, let alone the national side, other than complete and utter failure? Did *sorry Ronan* Rafa need to buy 97 players in his time at Liverpool?

demolished liverpool in that loss that time?

walcott has played in the CL, and if that's the only stipulation then that's the mark i guess.

I'll choke the first time someone describes benoit assou-ekotto or jermaine jenas as CL 'quality' players. I sincerely hope you think about that

don't undertand the confusion about ahh's basic point- why do southampton need to buy a bad player from spain for ££££ as opposed to promoting a bad player from the reserves in that position?

why do liverpool? Spurs?

were all of our right backs worse than alan hutton?

9m worse?

don't for a second buy that.

Tom top level players are different. I can obviously understand what Torres or Drogba add. Or as I said in the other thread, Wigan's ability to buy foreigners makes perfect sense. But what has Newcastle's proven track record of buying from outside the country added to their game, let alone the national side, other than complete and utter failure?

*cough cough* Scottish football *tumbleweeds*

'xactly! 9 poxy million put back into the academy compared to the fucking pittance any club currently spends on it would give you four thousand alan huttons!

Yes, why are English clubs wasting millions on players from a strange culture and who don't speak the language like Alan Hutton

at least then we'd have more than one right back to take to the fucking competition let alone choose from.

WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU WANT FOUR THOUSAND ALAN HUTTONS

'twas a joke my maine, calm it

Tom okay why the hell did Scottish clubs do it?

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

Maybe all the club scouts are foreigners?

This is gonna turn out to be about agents and backhanders again, isn't it?

that's what i said about 30 posts up

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

even in the short term, that's still v debatable

Perceived wisdom is that foreign players are better value for money in terms of skill/asking price, but that's been evident bollocks for ages.

Not that evident I would suggest, in terms of price + wages. It gets to be a trend, it's the done thing.

Top English clubs develop home grown talent up until the age of maybe 18, and then what's the thingummy rate? 95%?

What's the point of that? There's no way a player is the finished product at 18, not even at 21.

Shit, Aaron Lennon was fast but gash until last year, and he's been first team for four years or so.

It's chicken + egg tho. Decrease in quality in footballers coming thru the ranks, this is Scotland I'm talking about, was probably happening before the influx of foreign players and buying foreign players was seen as a short-term solution to that.

D'you think that the loss of talent to English clubs played a part in that Tom?

Not that evident I would suggest, in terms of price + wages.

But that would only apply to homegrown kids being overpriced by lower league clubs selling on, it doesn't apply to talent that the club develops itself, surely? Unless some guys in charge of academies have been Arrying a lot off the top.

D'you think that the loss of talent to English clubs played a part in that Tom?

Oh no, Scottish players have been playing in England since the formation of the English League, they won the league for those clubs!

Ireland produces a lot more good footballers than Scotland, how are they doing it?

Gaelic Football dropout wimps

^srsly^

Too crap to kick it over the crossbar?

I'm right in thinking that's how it works, yeah?

Too fucking soft, lad

But at least they're playing a sport?

Where d'you think Quinny got his bad back?

Away with your disco pants ya pansy fuck ya

I dunno what the % of irish lads playing organised sport in their teens would be, but yeah I'd imagine that it's pretty high for all of Giles/Dunphy moaning on the subject.

It's not the Gaelic thing, rly- most kids with aptitiude will play both until forced to choose. That's v common even within the Gaelic disciplines of Football/Hurling

The fact that GAA is a local game with local heroes is a big thing in encouraging participation to a fairly professional standard though, so I do think there's something there.

I know nothing about the development of soccer players though, because, simply put, you need to be from dublin or cork to get a game or a sniff of a game at FAI utd FC

I tell you when I know Scotland was in trouble: on 1st June 1997, I sat down to watch highlights of a friendly between Scotland and Malta, and soon realised there was a player wearing a Scotland shirt who I had never heard of before - that man was David Hopkin

Looks like Mainoo is about to be appointed England's saviour as well as Man Utd's

No pressure lad