Right... Have thought long and hard about this, so...
England were poor at the World Cup.
I predicted we weren't going to get out of the groups and we didn't.
Whatever is said about the performance against Italy and Uruguay, England weren't good enough.
We have qualified using the older, more experienced players - yet when it came to the crunch, Hodgson decided to go with a blend of youth and experience.
Granted, that was probably a good thing, but why not start with the youngsters in qualifying?
At least they would have had a tad more experience going into a major tournament.
The next point is about the Premier League and the amount of foreigners playing in it.
I read somewhere, approx 1/3 of players in the Prem qualify for England.
Haven't done any maths, but it would be interesting to see how many wc goals or appearances have been scored by players plying their trade in the Prem.
I have no idea whether it is EU law or not, but there needs to be something done, to encourage teams to play English players.
Look at Micah Richards. In my opinion, twice the player Glen Johnson is, yet he is rotting away in the reserves on massive wages - with foreign players being picked season after season ahead of him, all of varying quality.
Zabeleta, the fella who was there just a season and left cos he was past it (his name escapes me), Corluka, Boateng and now they have Sagna coming in.
Then you have Luke Shaw - who wont get a game when he leaves Southampton for a top three team (Jack Rodwell anyone? Andy Johnson? Scott Sinclair?).
You have other teams, buying quick fix foreign players - that can be sold on for a quick profit too (Newcastle...
).
Granted, encouraging native players into the first team, wont solve everything.
Bobby Robson gave caps to some poor, poor players in the 80's for example.
However, what we also had during that period, was a handful of pro's playing across Europe - in part because of the UEFA van on English clubs.
However, there is no doubt, those moves helped the majority of those players become better.
When I heard Tom Ince was interesting top clubs abroad, I was pleased.
However, it looks like he is going to a mid table Premier League team of some description.
Getting back to England - forget the old guard and start again, with youth for the Euro's.
edit: The player who's name I couldn't remember - Maicon.
Northern Ireland is one of my other teams whose results I look out for
