Stuart Pearce feels youngsters should be denied first team spot

Stuart Pearce

The ex-manager of England’s U21 team, Stuart Pearce, suggests that the junior English players should not be promoted to the senior team before they cross the particular age group.

Pearce said to The Independent:

“It’s a big call, make no mistake, but why don’t we leave all the players in their age-appropriate band and see how that works.

“People will say you can’t do that, players need to be upgrading, but the Spanish didn’t all of a sudden win things at senior level – they were the champions at Under-17, Under-19s, Under-21s.

“Those players learned to win together, and they step on the big stage and they win World Cups.

“We’re in an organisation [the FA] that hasn’t won anything at senior level for 50 years, now whatever we do we won’t lose the trophy cabinet because it’s not there at the moment, and it isn’t there at any age group either.” he added.

“If you don’t take your best players to major tournaments, you’ve got no chance of competing against the best.”

Earlier this year, Pearce was sacked by the English FA after the England U21 team bowed out from group stage of the European Championship. They lost all their group stage matches, against Italy, Norway and Israel.

He further mentioned:

“We go into the first game at the [European] championships [with] 17 players missing – eight of those with senior international caps. Now you take that amount of players out of the Spanish team they don’t come home with the trophy.

“I don’t think we’ve got a wealth of talent so we’re bringing the likes of the Chamberlains and the Joneses up very quickly, that are this age group now. They should be here with the under-21s now.”