Fundamental change required for English football

English football as I see it has been declining for years. Of course this type of crisis does happen in other English sports to a minor extent in Rugby and Cricket and to a greater extend in British Tennis.

What we lack is strength in depth and I believe we need a fundamental change to English football. I also think that all the UK nations have been suffering from a lack of good quality young players.

The problems

1. England has approximately 2700 UEFA certified coaches. Germany has 35000, Italy 29500, Spain 24000 etc see here.

2. The FA have put the England youth training centre on hold to pay for Wembley, demonstrating where their priorities lay.

3. The players looked tired. Maybe their are too many games in Premiership as well as, league cup, FA cup, Champions league, International friendlies/qualifiers, I got the feeling that a lot of our England players were not dreaming of lifting the world cup…but dreaming of golden sands and jet ski’s….we do play more than most or possibly all other nations.

4. Any flair is sucked out of players by the age of 21, Does something go wrong at the coaching level.

5. Fabio Capello's English has improved but he does not have a full command of English can he really get across complex tactics to the players.

6. The FA never seem very professional to me and often make the wrong decision. It doesn't have as much control over the premier league and appears to lack influence with FIFA.

7. Fifa president Sepp Blatter insistence on refusing to use replay technology is a backwards step. Why would you be happy to see incorrect decisions affect the results of big games? I am pleased to see that he has now apologised for this and has reopen the file on goal-line technology.

8. Fabio Capello said he would not take injured or out of form players to the world cup. He did both.

9. Of course Fabio Capello in the end didn't have much choice because of the lack of depth to the number of English Players. This is because of the number of mediocre foreign players in the premiership stops promising English youngsters from getting through. Some premiership clubs seem to have a bad habit of preferring second rate foreign players like rather than giving English talent a chance. This does not only effect England but Effects Wales, northern Ireland and Scotland as in the past most of these players also played in the English League.

10. Why do English players cost so much. Is this why they do not play aboard. The number of foreign players he would not be a problem if some of our players played in Europe. This would stop the English team only having experience of English football.

11. The truly world class foreign players in top sides make our “stars” look better than they actually are, falsely making us believe they can shine in world cups: i.e. Rooney

12. Totally incapable of playing the fast attacking football you see at club level, and which other nations play, probably for reasons above

13. Always resort to long-ball 4-4-2 which even the weaker teams now can close down.

14. We always blame the coach. Yes the coaches for England so make mistakes u sacking them only hides the fundamental problems with the English game.

15. Why are there so many foreign players at youth level at the academies of the biggest sides in England. Why is it most of our major players are produced by the West Ham academy.

16. If we cant get young home grown players into the English game how are we supposed to get British Asian players in. Theres a whole pool of tallent that needs to be brought into the game here. But asians are held back by there not being enough spaces for English/British players. Are we missing a trick here too.



Changes required

1. Lets have more UEFA professional coaches rather than the FA trained coaches, This is where the FA and the premiership should step in. How can there be so much money in the game without more funding to these areas

2. Lets have a football academy, FA have its priorities wrong its time they changed. There should be a structure to this and there should be more than one.

3. The FA should have a system of youth academies with links to the rest of Europe so other countries can also see English players.

4. Premiership teams should have to play at least two English players or three British players forcing teams like Arsenal to have to have a reasonable amount of British players.

5.The FA should be geared towards the English team and should not base decisions on finance but on what is best for the game.

6.Lets not sack Fabio Capello. I think he has learnt alot. We need to English change football and it won't help having to hunt around for another coach. It takes time to become a coach of any team.

7. Why not have a English coaching academy too. They could learn the game and start at the bottom clubs but also be involved with under 19 teams for example. They could be part funned by the FA offering good coaches to the lower sides therefore creating demand for them.

8. The state of English football should be regularly examined and changes made accordingly.

9 The structure of the FA should be accessed and improvements made.

10. The managers in the English league should have to attend a regular meeting to discuss what they are contributing to help produced new British players.

11. Lets not concern ourselves with the short term goal of qualifying lets concerntrate on rebuilding a new team with young players.

12. A break in the season.

13.Perhaps Premiership clubs should not play in the league cup. Games need to be cut down some how although personally I wouldn't reduce the number of clubs because I don't want to reduce the number of British players playing in the Premiership.

I don't believe the FA should scapegoat the manager as this happens everytime with every manager only England get worse and worse. We need more players, we need more coaching and we need the FA to change to help produce a better English game this needs to be their top priority. We also don't need to concentrate on qualify for tournaments in the short term but instead concentrate on building a new team. To build for the future because the FA and English football should be working on long term goals. Lets start again.

Todays link is to MarkReckons blog FIFA need to bring in goal-line technology