Too many foreign players in English Football?

Our best players have never gone abroad,

why would they start now?

 

yes they have - many have... and besides...

The point I was making was that if there were boundaries that stopped the best players playing in our leagues, our best players (who would want to play in the best leagues) would need to go abroad to reach the top of the game.

 

Go on then , when have we had more than " 2 top players" abroad at any one time?

I suspect never.

 

RE: Go on then , when have we had more than " 2 top players" abroad at any one time?

Michael Owen and David Beckham

Jimmy Greaves and Dennis Law

Chris Waddle and Mark Hately

David Platt, Paul Ince and Gazza...

Shall we continue?

 

---

 

RE: Go on then , when have we had more than " 2 top players" abroad at any one time?

So thats once,</p>

we can go all night if you want.</p>

How come you haven't mentioned Ray Wilkins , Luther Blissett</p>

Except for Greaves and Law I would guess that  none of those players were at the height of their powers when they were abroad.</p>

Therefore I will say again , our top players have NEVER gone abroad and I doubt they would start now.</p>

 

Hardly comparable though

Considering there are times when two top Premiership clubs can be playing in one game and the number of British players among them is so very low.</p>

If the top clubs, from which we draw our English talent are going to invest so heavily in foreign players, many who get to know our own players' weaknesses, there's no wonder we're struggling to get a world beating side together.</p>

Example - Ronaldo v Rooney. Need we say more?</p>

 

RE: Go on then , when have we had more than " 2 top players" abroad at any one time?

What are you on about?! Are you smoking drugs?

You've just named two more players (and there are many more - what about Ian Rush, Gary Linekar, John Charles etc etc?) and yet you conclude by saying our top players never go abroad - of course they do. Des Walker (there's another one).

For christ's sake.

If we didn't let foreign players into our leagues we'd end up being a poor substitute for Italy, Spain and Germany - our loss, their gain. So our best players would naturally want to play over there, with the big money, the sponsorship, the attention.

As things stand, we have some of the best players in the world in our top flight clubs - we should be learning from them. Having these players in the top flight does not prohibit our ability to invest in youth schemes properly - if we produce good enough players they will get to the top and the balance will naturally right itself.

 

Never more than 2 at a time.

Have England ever had more than 2 starting players on the pitch at any one time who have been playing club football outside of England. Scotland doesnt count.</p>

I think there is only Italy that has a lower number of International players that play outside its own National top division.</p>

 </p>

 

Oh, ok, go away and think about it, change the rules, then come back again.

Sod off mate. There have been plenty of English/British players playing their best football abroad. Your original comments were along the lines of English players never go abroad - well they do. We both know they do.

The fact that they do (under the current circumstances) is irrelevant to the original point - what I was suggesting was that if the foreigners stopped playing in our leagues, our game would suffer. The quality of our football would go down the toilet - think of the best ever Premier League players, most of them were foreign or capped for a foreign nation. If you were a top class footballer, would you rather stay in a barren league, short on international quality, or would you be attracted to go abroad?

I'd go further than that and suggest that the influx of foreign players saved our domestic leagues from the god awful long ball game. When English clubs were banned in Europe, and for that reason there were less foreign players coming over, our game became stodgy, unattractive, our international side suffered, and when we got back into Europe, we were well off the pace. Putting up artificial boundaries doesn't work.

The danger of putting up a barrier against foreign players is that the domestic game could suffer more than it could gain. Why do we need to do that? We just need to invest in youth more.

 

RE: Never more than 2 at a time.

"I think there is only Italy that has a lower number of International players that play outside its own National top division."

Didn't do them any harm!