Once again England fail in a major tournament, its time now to take a long hard look at our National side and indeed how like Scotland our talent in the domestic league is being stifled.
Between 1974 and 1986 it could be argued that Scotland had a better International team than England, certainly if judging it by qualification for the World Cup as we failed to qualify for either the 1974 or 1978 tournaments, during this time the Scots had a plethora of truly World Class talent to call upon, Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness & Alan Hansen were the backbone of the all conquering Liverpool side at the time, but it went further than that, most succesful sides had Scots in their spine, Billy Bremner, Joe Jordan & Gordon McQueen at Leeds, Man Utd had Lou Macari, & McQueen & Jordan again,but there were plenty of Scots knocking around at other clubs, Archie Gemmell and Kenny Burns in Forest's late 70's heyday for instance, not to mention a score of others in both Englaish and indeed Scottish football.
But for some reason by the end of the 1980's the production line was starting to falter, yes there were still some players around who were decent, but the stark truth is the Scottish Premier's arrival in the mid 80's spelt the death knell for Scottish talent, no longer where Rangers & Celtic truly interested in local talent, they could buy in Europe's cream and with the developement of players no longer a priority the fact is this had a direct bearing on the national side.
I am sure some will disagree with this theory, they will point out that its not just about developing talent, the raw materials have to be there and to a point I would agree, a nation just doesnt stop producing footballers, but you have to ask the question, why has Scotland stopped producing truly World quality players and there seems to be only one real answer.
That being the case its very east to draw comparisons with England and what has happened in the Premier League here, again clubs have taken the option of buying in talent over the last decade, look at the big teams and even the smaller ones come to that and the inclusion of players that came through the ranks reduced to less than a trickle, Man Utd produced a great crop of youth players who came through in the mid 90's but since then you can count on one hand home produced players who have truly become first team regulars in the past decade, same at Liverpool, Chelsea, Spurs and everywhere, Clubs had to have a youth team, so they did, but little effort has been put into it despite loud noises to the contary.
Even at Saints we neglected our youth, after the crop in the late 80's early 90's of Le Tiss, Shearer, Dodd etc, very few Saints players actually made a succesful permanent transition from youth to first team, Matt Oakley, Wayne Bridge are virtually the only two in over a decade from 1992 -2003 when we first started to see the fruits of the youth system revamp of 1999 and the full bloom of it ironically after we exited the Premier in 2005.
The fact is that the England side is now suffering because of this policy throughout the upper echelons of English football, its not just the fact that youth hasnt been developed, its the problem that it isnt allowed to blossom, a decade or so ago and promising youngsters would get into the clubs first side and stay there and learn their craft, now to varying degrees, youngsters who get into the first team at a young age, suddenly find themselves made an offer they cant refuse from the likes of Arsenal and are whisked off, not to get top quality Premier games under their belt, but to waste away in a system that has virtually abandoned reserve team football and to get their only chances in early European games or the Carling Cup, in my opinion not good for their long term career.
A decade or so ago we still had some World Class players coming through, Gerard, Terry, Ferdinand, Cole, Rooney, the future of the England side looked secure, after last night you have to look at our squad and in the main say that its full of either players who are unfortunately past their best and havent got another tournament finals i them, or players who are not truly World Class, the fact is like Scotland we have stopped producing top quality competitive youngsters and like Scotland its not because we have changed the gene pool, its because the system and the priorities of our top clubs have changed and its not conducive to the players developement, yes once in a while a real talent will shine through, but very rarely will it be allowed to bloom, Theo Walcott is a point in kind, in a little over 4 months at Saints he played 21 times mostly in the starting line up, in 6 1/2 years at Arsenal he has still only made 149 appearances with many of them as substitute or in minor competitions, hazarding a guess I would say that Arsenal have played somewhere in the region of 400 first team games, Theo has played in only a fraction of those he could have and is there anyone who can truly say that Theo Walcott has become the player that he had the potential to be, I fear for Alex Oxlade Chamberlain I really do.
So unless major changes are made in the English game, like Scotland its going to see its power on the World stage start to diminish at a great rate of knots now the decline has started to set in, indeed to change this around is not a simple task, as Saints showed, producing great players is not an overnight thing, you dont truly know how good your youth system is until around six years after you have revamped it, Chamberlain for instance isnt the product of the current youth set up at St Mary's, he is the fruit of those who were running it eight years ago, when he was spotted as a young kid and coached and trained through the system, in eight years time we will see how good this years system is and thats the case over the country, yes perhaps it can be changed a little quicker, but its about getting the mental attitude and competitiveness into kids at an early age, by the time they are 16 in most cases its too late.
Abroad they have in the main not gone down the road Scotland and subsequently England have, Germany for instance was told that they were finished as a World Power when they revamped the Bundesliga in the mid 90's, their refusal to spend multi millions and compete with the likes of the Premier league would end their reign as one of the top teams in International football, but not only that the Bundesliga would be become a backwater and soon would be played in front of empty stadiums watching third rate players, the truth is we now know exactly the opposite.
But have England gone too far now to do a U turn and come back, certainly whatever way we go the next six years or so are going to be painful, few of the younger members of the squad shone at Euro 12 and I dont hold out much hope for any of them, I dont see top class replacements in central defence especially nor in midfield, whatever happens our next crop of quality England players is maybe six years away and our veterans arent going to last that long.
With the new UEFA rules about debt etc coming in England do have a chance to take these on board and revamp firstly the domestic situation and that in turn will impact on the national side, Im sure that the big spending clubs like Man City will reject any radical plans out of hand, all they are interested in is buying in talent for top dollar usually from abroad, but the Premier league and indeed football needs to be drastically changed if our national side is ever to be a World force again, many will say this is a very pessemistic view, perhaps but did anyone truly see anything to encourage them in the game against Italy for the next four years, I know I didnt and a distictly average Italian side overwhelmed us and left us looking like Crewe Alexandra desperately hanging on in the FA Cup 3rd round in their big cup tie at Old Trafford, unless changes are made get used to it.