Who's To Blame? By Shane Lees @shanelees94
Though we have similarities to the likes of Italy, France and Germany, unlike these teams we fail to have enough comprehension of the collective. These teams are exactly that, teams. A solid block of players all working as one. But it is more than that; these teams have a clear and cohesive philosophy. They have tactics and plans that filter into all levels of their football.
All German midfielders come out in a similar mould and that is not by chance, their players come out to fit this philosophy rather than the team having to fit to the individual as in England. This leads to greater tactical understanding and more fluid play, something distinctly lacking in English football. If we are to improve this we as a nation need to settle on one particular philosophy and tactics and then stick with it, rather then chopping and changing every few years to adopt whatever strategy seems to be the modern footballing niche.
Foreign players are another contentious issue. Common criticisms are that with foreign players being very cheap and of high quality, English players are given little chance to play in the Premier League. Whilst there is validity to this it smacks of two obvious flaws; if the English players were good enough in the first place, they’d play. Equally, if English players were as willing to move abroad, to German, Italian and Spanish leagues as their foreign counterparts, this problem would be significantly mitigated. Ergo the problem here, though is accentuated by the foreign player issue, is not the root cause.
To this end we must assess the youth level issue, that players at this level are not given the proper level of training or played at the highest level. We often say things like grassroots issues rule the roost, that a lack of 3G pitches and infrastructure holds us back, but when compared to other successful national teams, like Brazil, it
becomes very difficult to say that our infrastructure is so weak that we cannot build a good team.
Whilst improvements can obviously be made, the distinct issue is players of a certain age; 18-22. Players of this age must start playing competitive football otherwise they will not develop to the same level as their European counterparts. Obviously this issue runs in tangent to the foreign player issue, but a more obvious solution is to find avenues in which these players can play that are already in the system; leagues other than the Premier League.
A broad problem is that our young players have no aspiration to ply their trade in leagues other than the EPL and are instead content to whittle away their most important developmental years in youth teams. The alleged FA solution of improving the youth level will only go so far and ultimately these players need competitive football. These players need to be pushed towards moving to clubs who will play them at as high a level as possible.