The problems in English football

Both Greg Dyke and Roy Hodgson need to step down immediately.

The truth about English Football

The simple truth is that Roy Hodgson isn’t good enough to be the manager of the England national team. The fact that FA chairman Greg Dyke backed Hodgson despite England’s embarrassing exit makes it apparent that even he should look to step down from his post as soon as possible. Despite what some might think, England’s World Cup was nothing short of abject failure and this will keep going on until incompetents like Dyke remain in power. That being said, the problems of English football run much deeper than Hodgson and Dyke.

The English Premier League is one of the most watched football Leagues in the world for a variety of reasons. However, of the few truly world-class players in the League right now , not one of them is English. Now, why exactly is that the case?

Many believe that Premier League clubs should stop looking at foreign markets and look to promote young English talent. Gary Neville has been a vocal advocate of this, and even Roy Hodgson had admitted that he’d like to have more English players to choose from. However, the vital question one has to ask in this case is why do English football clubs look abroad when it would be much easier to use local talent? The answer to this question is simple: most English players just aren’t good enough to cut it at the highest level.

The reason for this is the way young players are coached. If you’re asked to envisage a typical English player, it’s often someone who is a physical specimen; physicality is a key part of the English game. Yet the sad part is that in an effort to develop off-the-ball attributes such as pace, work-rate and physicality, basic skill attributes are often ignored.

In countries like Spain, Germany, Netherlands and Italy, the training is based more on skills and technical ability with the ball. Developing a players physique isn’t ignored, but it isn’t seen as central to their game. They build their players and teams around technical ability and physical ability plays second fiddle. Someone like Sergio Busquets isn’t exactly physically imposing, but he is arguably the best defensive midfielder in the world because of the way he reads the game. That reading of the game doesn’t come from relentless physical training. English coaches shouldn’t look to abandon their physical style altogether, but a way must be found to incorporate it along with technical on-the-ball training.

Home-grown rule

Aside from coaching, the other major issue (according to me anyway) is the home-grown players rule. The rule is defined as follows on the Premier League website:

“To ensure that Premier League Clubs continue to produce top home-grown talent, the 20 Clubs introduced a Home Grown Player rule from the start of the 2010/11 campaign. Clubs cannot name more than 17 non home grown players aged over 21.”

On the face of it, this rule is meant to ensure that clubs continue to promote local talent. If you want to have a 25-man squad, ensure that eight of them fit the home-grown quota or use a smaller squad. Seems fair enough. However, it hasn’t exactly worked out as planned.

The first problem is that you don’t have to be English to count as home-grown. A home-grown player is a player who has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Football Association of Wales for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday, or the end of the season during which he turns 21. In theory, English clubs can still bring in young foreigners and ensure they get three seasons in England before their 21st birthday, and voila… you have yourself a home-grown player. To cite an example, Chelsea’s recent signing Cesc Fabregas is a fully capped Spain international yet counts as home-grown due to his previous affiliation with Arsenal. This is a loophole that can be exploited by clubs if they wish to do so.