Fear running deep in English game as managers look to foreign shores

Fear of more humiliation in national football competitions, with England currently looking painfully ill equipped to compete at the sharp end of tournament football due to a lack of technical excellence – manifested in Tuesday’s dour 0-0 draw in Kiev, when the Three Lions looked wholly bereft of quality. Again.

Fear of the growing domination of foreign players – and the lack of English ones – in the starting line-ups of Premier League clubs, down to 32 per cent in 2012-13 from the estimated level of 72 per cent back in 1992-93, a statistic Roy Hodgson will be acutely aware of.

Criticism may have followed England’s display in Ukraine, but Hodgson has perhaps justifiably pointed to his lack of available options, especially with several established players being injured.

Not that club managers are helping him, with the inherent fear of failure palpable among Premier League bosses, many of whom report to foreign owners, and show an unwillingness to risk taking a chance on young English kids and to put their jobs ‘on the line’, in the words of Dyke.

Given the diminishing lifespan of top-flight managers – just 1.66 seasons – self-preservation is the default mechanism of many bosses, who invariably go with what they know, often overseas players, rather than take a punt on an unproven young player.

This is a problem that two widely-respected coaches in the English game, Leeds United first-team coach and development squad manager Neil Redfearn and Charlton Athletic academy director and ex-Leeds academy boss Paul Hart, feel is particularly pressing and likely to be high on the agenda for Dyke and the footballing commission tasked with providing the answers to England’s international malaise.

In his speech, Dyke cogently spoke of a “serious problem in the transition of young players – and particularly young English players – out of academies into first-team football’, most expressly in the top-flight. You sense his words struck a chord with many academy bosses.

For Redfearn and Hart, both involved with sides in the Championship, the pathway for young players to the first-team is a clear one, with the best example of that in terms of Leeds being the stunning progression of Sam Byram from academy football to Championship regular, proving the old adage that if you are young enough, you are good enough.

Hart was credited in his time at Leeds as bringing through future England internationals such as Jonathan Woodgate, Alan Smith and Paul Robinson, with his homegrown protégés eventually forming the backbone of the Whites side that reached the Champions League semi-finals in 2000–01.

But he left the club amid concerns about the lack of first-team opportunities for young players.

Hart is now enjoying success in the capital at Charlton and both he and Redfearn can empathise with their counterparts in the top-flight, with the number of young players handed opportunities in the Premier League pretty lamentable.

Last season, the playing time of English Under-21s in its flagship league fell to its lowest level, with research by the CIES Football Observatory showing that only 35 English Under-21 players made appearances in the Premier League last season, the lowest figure since 2005. Within that, Manchester City, Chelsea, Swansea, Stoke and Wigan failed to field an English player under 21 all season, while only three of the 23 players who were in the England Under-21 squad for the game against Scotland at Bramall Lane last month starting for top-flight teams in the first weekend of the season.

On the worrying situation, Redfearn said: “It’s so hard for young players to find a way in at Premier League clubs. I’m coming from a good situation here at Leeds where I am getting kids through with a manager who really believes in bringing good young players through and isn’t afraid to put them in.

“It’s a different picture at the top Premier League clubs where players are coming in and out of clubs and money is being spent.

“There’s a bit of a clamour with people saying there aren’t the players out there. But I think that’s a load of rubbish. There’s good young English players out there who can take the opportunity. Coaches must have a foresight and a bit of vision and not be so blinkered.

“Look at Sam Byram, who was playing Under-18s football two years ago. Clearly, a good player, but would he get the chance (if he was at a Premier club)? Until they get their foot in the door, you don’t know what they are capable of.” He added: “They say big clubs should sign big players. But look at Man United in the past and the young players they have brought through such as Beckham, Scholes and the Nevilles and these kind of players who have created a fantastic legacy. You can’t solve things by throwing money at it.

“Listen, I’m the first to put Match of the Day on the TV on Saturday night as there’s some fantastic foreign players out there who are great to watch. But it’s created a situation where there’s a lot of pressure to buy them and the more you pander to it, it becomes harder and harder.

“At Leeds, we have also had young players before who have been sold from our clubs to Premier League clubs and so called bigger ones and it hasn’t happened for them. Sometimes, it’s better staying where you are.”

Like Redfearn, Hart, who brought through the likes of future England players Jermaine Jenas and Michael Dawson after he left Leeds for Nottingham Forest, feels that managers need to start showing some foresight, but also equally believes that there is a diminishing quality pool of young English talent available to top-flight bosses, for widespread reasons.

According to Hart, they include the paucity of qualified coaches – with England having 1,161 coaches at Uefa A level compared to 12,720 in Spain and 5,500 in Germany – to a comparable lack of grassroots facilities.

He said: “What I have been saying for a long time is that the talent pool in this country is decreasing yearly.

“We have good players, but just less of them. And then there is having the courage to play them in the first team, which is a different thing.

“Unless football provides it, kids also don’t practise as much as they used to and I don’t think the raw talent is there in abundance as it was 30 years ago.

“The second thing is that we run academies and clubs have to be satisfied that it’s up and running with the right people in with the right teaching and all that.

“Then you need managers who are going to put them in the first team. We know their tenures are reducing and with that comes a fear of putting kids in.

“If you take Premier League and Category One clubs who have a lot of foreign and English boys, they have players of a high standard, but nowhere to go.

“At a club like Charlton Athletic, we reap the rewards and have a pathway. We had six boys representing England at different age groups last year.

“At Leeds, we also produced young players and gave them the right teaching. Not only did they play for Leeds, but the national team because they were players of the highest quality because of what we did.”