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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: |
Remember, you read it here first -- in the near future no England player will be playing regularly in the Premiership. Of course the solution is to insist that a quota of local players are in the starting line-up but that would be comfortably vetoed by the money-men. Bale is the only local player that qualifies for automatic Big Four selection. Alas. |
Doh... you have (in my humble opinion) confused within a discussion about nationality, the English with "home grown" and the locally (trained....)
The world governing body of football FIFA made exactly the same mistake. As FIFA is a "world Organistaion" it simply does not understand the subtlety of Freedom of Movement within the EU. eg MJH can toddle off and play for the Latvian Barrow Boys tomorrow, and there is not a damn thing that the Latvians can do about elderly Londoners taking their place, in their foottie teams.....
Err if LBB are willing to play MJH.
FIFA talked about proposals for reducing the foreign players in national football leagues and to "introduce" a true quota system. Under the FIFA system, in each match a team must field at least 6 players from that country. They won't do it as their lawyers will tell them this would constitute discrimination on the grounds of nationality.
The current home grown player quota rules, which are already in existence (?) we appear not to have noticed....apparently do not fall foul of the fundamental free movement of persons as the rules apply irrespective of nationality.
Your Home Grown players are in fact from what I can see any bugger born in the EU that has registered with a national fed for a set period of time. As all the UK top teams buy up top local European talent... the qualification of 3 years between 15 and 21 is really not that onerous.....They simply buy up EURO talent and loan your nippers out to lower divisions.... as in fact they are already doing..........
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You have entirely missed the point, Wiley. Of course I knew all about what 'home grown' is and it has led many Premiership clubs to stock their academies with already-groomed sixteen year olds from all over the world. Since very few of these, one almost might say none of these, will ever be good enough for the first team of one of the Big Four, the position is quite unchanged. The odd one might qualify for squad inclusion but that is no more significant than that the odd Scottish or Welsh player might occasionally pop up in a Big Four squad.
The point I am making is that, unlike Scotland and Wales, the England team is entirely composed of such players. Remember that someone like Lallana is a fringe player for both Liverpool and England. Why? Because England is roughly at the level of Liverpool. It is not as good as Chelsea or Man City but it could hold its own in the Premiership. Every England player qualifies as a starter for a good Premiership side, none of them qualify as a starter for a Big Four side. On the other hand, every England player is good enough to be in a Big Four squad.
Such is the difference in financial resources between The Big Four and the rest, under the new rules, all England players will eventually gravitate to squad status with a Big Four team.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile is not sure if MJH is at the bottom of the canyon, and Wile is at the top.... or, as is most probably the case, the other way round.
Still I am happy to throw myself off. It means at least, after a triple backward somersault, a 40,000 foot fall and being run over by a train....(twice)
I don't have to continue.....
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Chad was closer. |
You're right, I was.
I read your analysis while all the time nodding and thinking "yeah, yeah, my thoughts exactly."
Then,,, No 338:
| Remember, you read it here first -- in the near future no England player will be playing regularly in the Premiership. |
I simply hadn't been bold enough to follow it through to this logical conclusion, but I can't disagree.
The process has already begun. Man City, Chelsea and even your beloved Arsenal have all bought up talented English youngsters to merely keep their benches warm... (At least United tend to give them more of a chance to establish themselves, Shaw, Smalling, Jones all brought in to play, not just to make up the quotas.) But I fear United will soon go the same way, (The above mentioned three could also shortly become bench warmers, after this summer's spending spree.)
The only reason the likes of Rooney, Cahill and Hart can comfortably hold down top four starting places is because the elite of world football are more attracted to Real, Barca, Bayern etc. leaving our clubs to choose from the second tier (which includes the top Englishmen).
But as the spending power of the Premiership clubs increases and they start to outbid their continental rivals, that's when the Harper prediction will come to pass.
And don't forget all teams with aspirations of Champions League football (even the also rans like Liverpool and Spurs) will be buying up the best English talent to fill their quotas (and keep their benches warm) and it is from these players that the England squad will be selected.
(By the way... didn't somebody once liken Phil Jones to the legendary Duncan Edwards?)
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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But examine the case of James Milner. A typical fringe player for both England and a Top Four team. His free transfer from Man City to Liverpool would appear to signal that he actually prefers a starting place with a second tier team to a squad place with a first tier one.
This may be our salvation. Footballers of course are as mercenary as the rest of us but, also like the rest of us, are obliged when really necessary to take into account happiness. I think most players are miserable warming the bench (and not even that a lot of the time) so it may gradually dawn on them that taking a bit less money and having no chance of playing in the Champions League may be the way ahead.
It's hardly my fault if you insist on playing him in the back four.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| But examine the case of James Milner. A typical fringe player for both England and a Top Four team. His free transfer from Man City to Liverpool would appear to signal that he actually prefers a starting place with a second tier team to a squad place with a first tier one. |
Yes but what happens when the next James Milner comes along but finds that by then even Liverpool and Spurs have used their new found wealth to fill their regular lineup with first tier foreign talent? Will they then be prepared to drop down to (say) Swansea or Stoke to fulfill their desire for regular game time?
I doubt it.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As is usual on this day, the Library greets the start of the Tour de France. Normally we just provide details about places of AE significance the Tour visits (many of you will remember the charabanc we hired last year to visit St Malo and Mont St Michel). but in view of our new found interest in sport let us look at the wider picture.
In view of the extraordinary fact that Eurosport has just won the TV rights for the Olympics (more dirty dealings say the usual raft of public sector broadcasters), I draw your attention to the unusual situation that British Eurosport finds itself in. As the main Tour broadcaster, it has to spend most of its time lauding its main rival, Sky TV, because the Sky team is the Manchester United of world cycling, ie the team everybody hates except the Brits who worship them with positively psychiatric obsessiveness. I know I do.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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One benefit that accrues from international sport is an improved grasp of geography. Or so I thought.
Jersey's sports minister, scheduled to attend the Dance World Cup in Bucharest to receive the UK flag, flew instead to Budapest. This would be quite understandable if he'd been a U.S. minister. He explained he probably would have picked up on the error if he hadn't had such a busy week with the Island Games. The 2016 Dance World Cup will be held in Jersey so maybe the Romanian sports minister should book a flight to Guernsey.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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The Ashes series having just started has had me reminiscing about the "good old days" of test cricket (and how Twenty20 has had a polluting effect on the longer forms of the game).
First off, the fifty over format has turned into a slugfest (which I don't really mind, since it's not real cricket anyway) but now the impatience it generates has metastasised into test cricket… and we have respectable pundits talking of expected run rates of four and a half an over!!! (I remember when more than about two hundred and seventy runs in a day's play was considered reckless.)
There's no longer the opportunity for young players the develop the defensive skills that used to be a fundamental part of the game… and today's young fans will never learn to enjoy the thrills of their team battling it out for the last two days (for just a couple of hundred runs) to earn the nail-biting draw that wins the series.
A lamentable loss.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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True, but not a completely new situation. Some might recall when Geoffrey Boycott was the master of the defensive skills. But his younger colleagues got so frustrated at his effect on the test match that they "boycotted" him by "accidentally" getting him run out. IIRC, it was a young lad called Botham that did the deed. :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAeFm22xB7Q
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Boro and Chad are living in the era of a Quickie, Fast Medium, an off spinner,who might turn it on an uncovered wicket, or on the 5th day....and a couple of medium pacers who could "wobble" it a bit.
You saw off the quickie. Obligingly at that point the opposition skipper, would set a field with a couple of slips and a mid on and off well back.
The sort of passive defence they advocate is well nigh useless against modern test teams... of two, sometimes three, genuinely quick bowlers, one of whom will specialise in reverse swing, and a leggie who can turn it 18", with a skipper setting fields of 3/4 slips, a gully, and a forward short leg wearing a helmet. You have to score at pace using the gaps in the field.
Nothing ever gets worse, unless proven otherwise.
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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| The sort of passive defence they advocate is well nigh useless against modern test teams... of two, sometimes three, genuinely quick bowlers, |
Nonsense.
I take it you didn't watch much test cricket in the 70s, 80s or 90s... when the Windies would regularly take to the field with four genuine quicks (and I mean real genuine quicks).
And what about Donald, De Villiers and Pollock... or Wasim Akram, Waqar Younus and Shoaib Akhtar... not to mention Lillee and Thomo.
I'm talking about having the skill to defend against these guys when you have to save a match.
| Nothing ever gets worse, unless proven otherwise. |
Show me a modern test team with a pace attach that could match Ambrose, Walsh, Marshal and Bishop.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Chad wrote: |
I'm talking about having the skill to defend against these guys when you have to save a match.
| Nothing ever gets worse, unless proven otherwise. |
Show me a modern test team with a pace attach that could match Ambrose, Walsh, Marshal and Bishop. |
You make my point for me. You can't defend against these type of pace attacks with aggressive field placements. In fact Marshal did not even bowl at full speed or try to bounce out tail enders, he didn't even need to. The type of passive defence you advocate was so hopeless he could bowl out these technical defensive batsman, off a shortened run.
By modern I was referring to exactly the period you are quoting, seventies onwards just look at West Indies field setting in their prime.
The fact that England, took years to adjust and realise that the best answer to this type of bowling attack was counterattack ie quick runs on the board, is exactly due to the "We need better defence, it was better in the old days/its all the fault of one day cricket mentality/its foreign umpires (they have now reformed this, so you can stop whinging about it.....)" you have predictably adopted......
The type of "last day heroic defence" you yearn for is the mentality of a losing team, clutching at straws.
I guess you watched Zulu too often.
I doubt the Aussies, having gone "one down" will fall for your claptrap, nope they will try to take the initiative back.
Please don't suggest playing a extra defensive batsman in the middle order to protect the lead.........
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Chad
In: Ramsbottom
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You (not for the first time) miss the point entirely.
You have been influenced by the way test cricket has changed since the introduction of Twenty20 without realising it.
You assume you have always known that attack is the best form of defence (and trying to retain your wicket is just for losers) but I bet twenty years ago you cheered along with the rest of us as Mike Atherton withstood the onslaught of Donald, Pollock and co. for over ten hours to save that match in Johannesburg (with the assistance of Jack Russell).
The fact that England went on to lose that series is irrelevant... it doesn't detract from the enjoyment value of Atherton and Russell's stand.
I'm not arguing tactics here (we all love swashbuckling cricket) I'm simply pointing out that we have lost an enjoyable element of the game, because today's cricketers cannot acquire the necessary skills and the spectators can never learn to appreciate the sort of inning I'm talking about.
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Boreades
In: finity and beyond
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What can one say? It's just not cricket!
Or: It's cricket, but not as we know it Chad.
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