England - the future....

[stealthpapes]

The posh kids are quite good but we only really care about them every 4 years.

[Royal Rother]

Or when they beat us 6-0.

[Royalclapper]

There's also the question of incentives in developing the talent and skill levels in English football to match those of the leading nations. The Premier League for example, and particularly the big clubs within it, have such financial clout that they can buy everyone else's finished products without committing to the riskier task of developing and retaining top class English players.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Review on the daft B team idea on the Yahoo website...

Michael Owen believes the very future success of the England football team depends on it. Arsene Wenger is open to the idea. Andre Villas-Boas reckons it has to happen. And there is logic behind the idea of Premier League B teams playing competitive football within the existing league structure. Man City B in the Conference: it has a ring to it.

Owen's point is a simple one. The way English football is currently organised, the ease of transition between the youth set-up and the first team has been entirely eroded. A terrible Bermuda Triangle has opened up, into which whole generations of talent disappear.

With the Premier League now operating Under-21s instead of reserve teams, with every first team game requiring seven substitutes, young players, extremely well coached in the academies, find themselves without opportunity to harden their skills against and with older professionals.

“When I came through, I played in the reserves with the likes of Jan Molby, seasoned international players. You learn so much playing alongside them,” Owen told me earlier this week. “Now you don’t get that. I’m not one for foreign players stunting development. Not having that at all. What affects our national team is not having any form of stepping stone into the first team. Academies are great, but then what? It’s the system that’s letting us down.”

Owen’s solution is this: beef up the loan system to get Premier League youngsters out to lower division clubs, give them a dose of the real world beyond the cossetted cloisters of academies. It did no harm to Tom Cleverley, Jack Wilshere, Danny Rose and Andros Townsend. His other solution is to get Premier League B Teams playing competitive football.

“Put them in the Conference, or League Two,” he says. “Then we’ll have players properly coming through, not disappearing.”

It is a nice theory. It works in Spain after all. There – with caveats which preclude promotion beyond a certain level – B teams play in the lower leagues, where young players get their shins kicked and their attitudes hardened. And Spain aren’t bad at developing the next generation.

There is just one problem: it could and should never happen here. Sure, it might suit the Premier League clubs. Yes, it might help England. But consider for a moment what would happen if you are Oxford United in League Two or Forest Green or Mansfield in the Conference. What would happen to your club if it was relegated to make room for 20 incoming operations?
And even if it didn’t, what would it be like playing many of your games against ghost opposition, filled with players who would rather not be there. Does that make for proper competition?

English football’s great remaining strength is its depth. In Oxford, Mansfield and Forest Green, glory is not a concept which much occupies the imagination. There football provides a different source of interest than in the elevated star factories of the Premier League.

There it is a game rooted in community, where the connection between those in the stands, and those on the pitch and in the boardroom is completely different from the rarefied atmosphere of the big boys. The imposition of a bunch of B teams at their level would inevitably see that element of the game diluted, if not threatened with extinction.
Hilariously, I heard these thoughts articulated brilliantly on the radio the other day by the most unlikely champion of community football. Pete Winkelman, the chairman of MK Dons and the man who effectively stole someone else’s club when he facilitated the move of Wimbledon from the London Borough of Merton, was talking about the devastation that would be wrought on the local game by the arrival of B teams in the league.

To be fair he was not without self-knowledge. He had, he said, learned the hard way quite how much a club is rooted in its community when he forcibly extracted Wimbledon from its home. He learned enough, certainly, to appreciate that sort of local connection should never again be compromised. And B teams would unquestionably do that, altering the very fabric and purpose of the lower leagues.

Just because a man like Winkleman espouses such a notion does not mean that the need to protect the integrity of the lower leagues is wrong. Sure, it is a romantic idea. Community connection does not make much money. Nor does it win World Cups. But it just happens to be one of football’s most significant – if dwindling – assets. Undermining more than 150 years of heritage simply to make life easier for the top clubs seems nothing more than an act of larceny.

Yet, there seems to be a growing momentum behind the idea. So much so, I wouldn't be surprised to see some sort of B team system (even if it is simply an informal matter case of Southampton using Oxford as a feeder club, Mansfield being taken over by Villa and Forest Green by Cardiff) within five years. Why? Because the thing that talks loudest in English football is not tradition, community or social value. It is money.

[just some bloke]

Glenn Hoddle's take:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24477751

...it is about the experience that the likes of the Barkleys, the Wilsheres can get under their belt so that we can have a real onslaught at the Euros...

... We will always create exciting players, like your Ferdinands, your Owens and your Beckhams, but we need 15 of these players every two years coming through

[Hoop Blah]

As ever I pretty much agree with everything Hoddle says in that link.

[genome]

Glenn Hoddle's take:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24477751

...it is about the experience that the likes of the Barkleys, the Wilsheres can get under their belt so that we can have a real onslaught at the Euros...

... We will always create exciting players, like your Ferdinands, your Owens and your Beckhams, but we need 15 of these players every two years coming through

[Barry the bird boggler]

Like him or not Hoddle is a fine coach and someone I'd have looked to take over the U21s instead of those we keep appointing there.

[Sanguine]

Another +1 for Hoddle's views here.

Barkley + Wilshere >>>>>>>>> sending Gerrard + Lampard to another World Cup.

[winchester_royal]

I like Hoddle, could do much worse when Hodgson goes.

[Avon Royal]

Yes, he would do much worse than Hodgson.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Now Walkers out of the Poland game, what are England's options at right back

[AthleticoSpizz]

Liam Rosenior

[creative_username_1]

nice finish

[Ian Royal]

Glenn Hoddle's take:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24477751

...it is about the experience that the likes of the Barkleys, the Wilsheres can get under their belt so that we can have a real onslaught at the Euros...

... We will always create exciting players, like your Ferdinands, your Owens and your Beckhams, but we need 15 of these players every two years coming through

That didn't bother me until it was pointed out on here. Now it enrages me.

[bcubed]

Like him or not Hoddle is a fine coach and someone I'd have looked to take over the U21s instead of those we keep appointing there.

Do you mean this Glenn Hoddle?!


""75% of what happens to Paul Gascoigne in his life is fiction"

“Michael Owen is a goalscorer - not a natural born one, not yet, that takes time”

“I never heard a minute's silence like that.”

“I think in international football you have to be able to handle the ball.”

“Look at Jesus. He was a normal run of the mill sort of guy who had a genuine gift.”

“I have a number of alternatives, and each one gives me something different.”

"When a player gets to 30, so does his body"

"With hindsight, it's easy to look at it with hindsight"

“At this moment in time I did not say them things.”

“They were still in the dressing room when they came out for the second half.”

“Okay, so we lost, but good things can come from it - negative and positive.”

[Hoop Blah]

“Michael Owen is a goalscorer - not a natural born one, not yet, that takes time”

I remember there being a bit of a fuss about this one at the time, but to me it made perfect sense.

Owen had already scored a lot of goals at this time but I think what Hoddle meant was he wasn't a fox in the box poacher then, he scored a lot of goals by using his pace to get into positions and by beating defenders to the ball. He did later develop the movement and anticipation of a Linekar, Fowler or Cureton and become more of a typical goalscorer, but that wasn't a strength of his game at the time.

[Wax Jacket]

and he certainly didn't spend the rest of his career hanging round the 6-yard box on one leg waiting for tap-ins

[Sanguine]

“Michael Owen is a goalscorer - not a natural born one, not yet, that takes time”

I remember there being a bit of a fuss about this one at the time, but to me it made perfect sense.

Owen had already scored a lot of goals at this time but I think what Hoddle meant was he wasn't a fox in the box poacher then, he scored a lot of goals by using his pace to get into positions and by beating defenders to the ball. He did later develop the movement and anticipation of a Linekar, Fowler or Cureton and become more of a typical goalscorer, but that wasn't a strength of his game at the time.

Tbf most of those 'Hoddle-isms' are no more than poor grammar.

Christ, this one is pretty much prophetic.

“I think in international football you have to be able to handle the ball.”

It reads shit, but as we bemoan the style of football played by England, we should consider than our manager was saying we had to be comfortable on the ball 15 years ago.

[genome]

I enjoyed this one:

"I have been here before as a spirit - this is just my physical body, it is just an overcoat. And at death, you will take the overcoat off."