England are shite

As footballing nation our own players are gash, truly gash and yet we believe when they play in our shirt colour they’re good, the premier league is letting down the true football fans of this Country.

We cater for the tv markets so they couldn’t give a shit if the teams have no identity and English players in the team, sad and I can not wait for it to implode.

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Agreed.

You’ve ruined it now @sfcsim

This was Barry’s quiet, safe space, so he could be alone cursing Engerland…

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Sorry! Dam!

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Shite? Inbreds surely?

I want to upvote you for the sentiment of your post Bazza, but I can’t ignore that you spelled country with a capital C…

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I think back to the days before Premier League & TV Money ruined the England team, and I’m just like *sigh*. Will we ever see them days again? I remember the 80s & 90s when the England team was majestic & lead the world with our silky skills! We used to Smash germany & brazil & spain & france every time! How the fk have these shitty no-mark countries suddenly got a march on us??

It’s the fkn prem & the fkn money. Mark my words!

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Don’t encourage him Bearsy. :lou_facepalm_2:

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How long before somebody mentions 5 England captains in the same Southampton team ?

Oh :lou_facepalm_2:

Slightly tangential, but here’s a question: is there any other sporting anomaly out there quite like the repeated failure of the English men’s national football team?

I mean, in general, sporting success between countries can pretty much be worked out almost to a tee just by looking at the popularity of the sport in the country, the cultural importance of the sport, the money invested historically and the country’s population. Tot those up and you’ve more-or-less got an exact formula for how good a country is going to be: (Brazil; 200Mn people, football hugely popular and culturally important for the country’s sense of pride, relatively decent investment in grassroots coaching and academies and so on, as well as very few other competing sports and the added bonus of kids rich enough to have easy access to a football pitch, but poor enough not to have much else). Basketball in the US is basically the same, and when it comes to Rugby in New Zealand obviously population is low but all the other factors being high make up for it etc.

As such, its no surprise that Germany, Italy, Spain and France are all much of a muchness in terms of footballing success in Europe - you get a bit of variance here and there with Spain being fairly unsuccessful for quite a while but sure enough their period of dominance rolled around eventually.

England’s repeated failures though seem to be totally unparalleled in the world of sport. I really can’t think of another country that defies this formula to the extent that we do - and is just so, so, terrible at a particular sport despite having everything seemingly going for it. Germany at the Olympics maybe? Italian and French (male) players at Tennis perhaps?

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It’s where you put your investment - we have neglected sport coaching and we’re struggling, whereas North Korea has put every penny into ballistic missile research over forty years and is now seeing the benefits.

We need to prioritise - Trident or a World Cup win?

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England players are not gash. Who would not have Harry Kane in a Saints shirt? The England team though has been poor for some time and there are no world class players in the squad, but even when we had the “golden generation” we didnt win anything despite having a lot more quality players at that time. There seems to be a mental issue when players pull on the England shirt. Look at the Ox last night. A quality player but he looked clueless for most of the game. Alli is as good as most players in the Premiership but looked lost most of the time last night. Walker looked like a Sunday park player yet has just signed for a top four club from another quality club. The argument used to be that home grown players would improve by playing against and with the best week in week out. It hadnt hurt international sides like Spain and Italy over the years, so why should it damage us? Football like most things in life, is cyclical and you have to make the most of what you have got when you have got it. We had it in 1966 and made the most of it and in 1970 but blew it. In later years we lost out on the lottery of penalty shoot outs but werent “gash.” Slovakia are no mugs and played us off the park for the first 30 minutes. England did well to get back in the game and were much improved in the second half. But we are not ranked 9th for nothing and as someone said, England are currently the Southampton of International football. That will not change until we get more quality in the side and a better coach but clearly there is a big gap between performing well in the Premiership and replicating that form at International level and we dont have many making the step up at the moment. Like Southampton, England are crying out for a bit of magic in midfield but those players dont grow on trees. There is an expectation that England should be up there competing with the best but why is that? One World Cup victory. No European victories. We produce the goods at club level but have never been a giant of international football so why get so wound up? The best we can hope for at the moment is no more emabarrasing matches such as the Iceland game. Lower the expectations and the blood pressure should go down too.

The main issue is the large size of the clubs and their dominance and the premier leagues selling their soul to tv audiences, money has made our players lazy and passionless for their nation.

The only nation on the planet where the representatives aren’t arsed really, its pathetic.

The EPL is the Worlds league not the English league and we suffer for it and what sticks in the craw is our clubs are still shit are fail to produce with all the money, all the foreign imports.

What an absolute waste of money, thje league is just a money mountain for average players.

It really is very simple… how did Germany manage to go from the abysmal performances from late 2002 to WC semis in 2006, 2010 and then winners in 2104? Answer is that they had 100% backing from all clubs. The clubs recoignised that if the League brand value was to improve and enable better revenues, it needed to be associated with a particlar style of entertaining play and that needed to start with a strong national team. There was no ‘them and us’ betwen the Bundesliga and the DFB. A single unified approach.

Unlike the English (who still to this day keep banging the ‘Stoke’ drum - play to the strengths of the players you have), the Germans decided on a style of play… to move away from the pragmatic ‘efficient’ cliches and towards a faster attacking game. Instead of worrying about whether they had the players for this, they simply coached this style. A long term view and made possible by the 1000s of UEFA pro licensed coaches they have running kids and youth football in every town… and at professional clubs. This meant they produced a conveyor belt of talent that can slot in…

The English game is dominated by the Premierleague clubs who dont give a fuck about the national side, play and coach their own style often limited to what the players are capable of… which changes with each new manager just bringing the players who can play to their vision…**** the top few clubs being obsessed only with Europe, the rest just with prem survival and hanging on to the revenue… no long term integrated perspective and no desire to find one. It is not helped that grassroots kids football is too often coached by willing and dedicated dads who have the basic FA badge, but nothing beyond that because it costs about 10k to get a UEFA pro licence…in Germany, I understand this was paid for or subsidised by the clubs and DFB.

We have the talent in England, but to get them to play in a style together is the challenge because they are all from clubs with different approaches… as such England have a team in name only, no TEAM identity or style of play. How often do we hear press and media say ‘he has to play’… irrespective of whether they fit in with the style that works for most others ( that ongooing stupid question of how to 'accomodate Beckham, Lampard, Gerrad FFS as opposed to who is best for teh style we are playing and if some are left on the bench, that is fine - its about the team, not the individual…) Nothing will change without the clubs aligning on this from grassroots to elite.

*** this is not helped with old fashioned ideals that ‘the manager should decide everything’ the Harry Redknapp appraoch… fans often tow the media ex player/Manger line on this and criticise how clubs in Spain, Germany etc have head coaches who coach the players they are given. If you have a club style that is coached at all levels, then in theory you have a youth development system that works by creating players who can slot in… bit like what we are trying to do at saints… very much like what the Germans are doing…

Our problem is that because we invented the game, we think we have all the answers… meanwhile the Germans have won 3 world cups since 66, the Brazilians 3, the Italians and Argentians 2 a piece… and we are still debating the same cliched shit about whether its right that a manager does not have all the say in players in (because thay cant be arsed coaching) and accomodating players, without a coherent identity or style…

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Thanks @areloa-grandee ( @pap you need to rebuild your list of usernames, unless my browser is caching them) for saying what I was thinking albiet very much more eloquently.

Chutney may be a homophobe but I agree with him.

Why have saints roduced so many England players the past 6 years?

Everyone laughed at Rupert when he said he could build a home grown UCL team, but fact is, we are only following the European system and structures.

Meanwhile, the few Engllish players getting regular game time are surrounded by mercenary over seas players so when we try and get a full and fit squad together we end up with Henderson Livermore and even Redmond FFS

We produce players as we have a moneyball system of produce and sell but that doesn’t make it easier for us as we never see the best of our players and sell them and merely make a profit for the shareholders.

Clubs aren’t going to do it so they need to be forced to do it.

Quota of a minimum amount of English players in squad
Same again for the starting line up.
Salary caps.

I don’t believe that the players don’t care about playing for England. The lazy accusation is lazy itself. As AG says, it is more about the disparity between international football and the Premiership and its self interest. According to an article I read this morning it isn’t going to get any better any time soon. Expect more of the better foreign players to move to the Premiership in the future.

Why do Germany, Italy and Spain manage?

Portugal?
Greece?