Buying British

[Chinaspur]

Motivated by the 'sell Lennon for £20m we could replace him with [insert name of player from abroad who you've seen twice in a match and several times on youtube] and the constant JD bashing and whining about how we should get someone else in I took a look at our appearances list.

Current players by appearances, league and total:

Ledley King 254 307
Jermain Defoe 211 273
Aaron Lennon 178 244
Michael Dawson 172 239
Tom Huddlestone 124 180
Benoit Assou-Ekotto 116 154

The top five current players, in terms of appearances are all home grown British players. If you look at the list of premier league appearances the first 14 are from the UK or Ireland.

It seems that if we buy British we have a better chance of keeping the player for the long term, and therefore although the transfer fee may be higher, there are almost certainly considerable transaction fee savings over the long term.

Not sure why this should be...

They may be more attached to the club, and feel more settled than their foreign counterparts?
Given that British players feel less inclined to move abroad their options for moving are less?

Even so, it seems to make the suggestion that we get rid of a long term player who is doing a job for the team seem more ill thought out when whatever replacement you manage to attract may well not be as committed to the club and be looking to move on in a season's time.

On an unrelated note

Sol ****bell 255 315
Ledley King 254 307

we need to get at least 9 more games out of those knees!

 

[tobi]

I don't care about where the players are from, just being a good fit for the team/squad and committed to the cause is 'good' enough for me.

I wouldn't choose a British player over a foreign player just because the British guy has no ambition and is happy in his comfort zone.

 

[sloth]

Who gives a shit where they come from? If the club thinks they're good enough, can do a job, has assessed value against international commitments (ACN for instance) etc. then there's no reason to discriminate on the basis of country of origin is there?

 

[Chinaspur]

I give a shit where the player comes from if it makes that player more likely to be at the club next season.

I'm not suggesting we never buy from abroad. Just that it seems that British players are more likely to stay at the club long term, and if we want to build a stable team that evolves gradually then it seems like a good move to try and keep quality British players.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Man U are consistently challenging for or winning the league and have always had a decent number of home-grown players in the side. Other clubs come and go, Liverpool, Arsenal and now Chelsea have much less season to season stability.

 

[sloth]

I give a shit where the player comes from if it makes that player more likely to be at the club next season.

I'm not suggesting we never buy from abroad. Just that it seems that British players are more likely to stay at the club long term, and if we want to build a stable team that evolves gradually then it seems like a good move to try and keep quality British players.

It doesn't seem like a coincidence that Man U are consistently challenging for or winning the league and have always had a decent number of home-grown players in the side. Other clubs come and go, Liverpool, Arsenal and now Chelsea have much less season to season stability.

Apologies mate, I didn't read the OP properly. Not got the time atm, but I'll try and get a proper response out later.

 

[StartingPrice]

In defence of China, I think there is a bit of a fadism about overseas players, and an underrating of British Isles players.
We all do it - a lot ofthe time we see a few good games and a lot of put-together clips, and combine the two into wonder-players.
I don't really care where a player comes from, so long as we get the highest quality possible, but I do think we should be more careful about what we wish for.

 

[tototoner]

All the successful teams in the Premiership have had a British / Irish spine - even Man City have one now. Once Arsenal's eroded so did the silverware.

This argument about not caring where the players come from I don't agree with, foreign players are more likely to be mercenaries ( examples are Adebayor, Berbatov and now Modric and Tevez ) so you have to have some reservations when buying them. Of course this doesn't apply to all foreign players but it is a trend.

But more importantly for the English game in general is that the influx of foreign players / managers has impacted the English national team so much that they are now a 2nd Tier International team who cannot even find an English manager. That would never happen at any of the other major European football nations like Germany, Holland, Spain or Italy where they actually care about how successful their national side is.

Then again the downside of buying British is the price

 

[Abdoujaparov]

All the successful teams in the Premiership have had a British / Irish spine - even Man City have one now. Once Arsenal's eroded so did the silverware.

This argument about not caring where the players come from I don't agree with, foreign players are more likely to be mercenaries ( examples are Adebayor, Berbatov and now Modric and Tevez ) so you have to have some reservations when buying them. Of course this doesn't apply to all foreign players but it is a trend.

But more importantly for the English game in general is that the influx of foreign players / managers has impacted the English national team so much that they are now a 2nd Tier International team who cannot even find an English manager. That would never happen at any of the other major European football nations like Germany, Holland, Spain or Italy where they actually care about how successful their national side is.

Then again the downside of buying British is the price

I don't buy that at all. The number of foreign players might stop second rate english players playing in the prem, but if you're world class, you'll make it just fine.

Fact is, England has never been a world beating team apart from one time when we played the WC at home. Just look at us in the 70s!

 

[StartingPrice]

All the successful teams in the Premiership have had a British / Irish spine - even Man City have one now. Once Arsenal's eroded so did the silverware.

This argument about not caring where the players come from I don't agree with, foreign players are more likely to be mercenaries ( examples are Adebayor, Berbatov and now Modric and Tevez ) so you have to have some reservations when buying them. Of course this doesn't apply to all foreign players but it is a trend.

But more importantly for the English game in general is that the influx of foreign players / managers has impacted the English national team so much that they are now a 2nd Tier International team who cannot even find an English manager. That would never happen at any of the other major European football nations like Germany, Holland, Spain or Italy where they actually care about how successful their national side is.

Then again the downside of buying British is the price

True...makes the policy of identifying and nurturing young talent from the British Isles all the more imperative, and aprudent policy adopted by DL.

 

[Chinaspur]

In defence of China, I think there is a bit of a fadism about overseas players, and an underrating of British Isles players.
We all do it - a lot ofthe time we see a few good games and a lot of put-together clips, and combine the two into wonder-players.
I don't really care where a player comes from, so long as we get the highest quality possible, but I do think we should be more careful about what we wish for.

And the flip side is we see our own players so often that we know all the flaws in their games.

 

[tobi]

All the successful teams in the Premiership have had a British / Irish spine - even Man City have one now. Once Arsenal's eroded so did the silverware.

This argument about not caring where the players come from I don't agree with, foreign players are more likely to be mercenaries ( examples are Adebayor, Berbatov and now Modric and Tevez ) so you have to have some reservations when buying them. Of course this doesn't apply to all foreign players but it is a trend.

In recent times Wayne Bridge is the worst kind of mercenary, he knows full well that he won't get any playing time at City but he shows no willingness to get his career back on track and take a pay cut. He has no ambition whatsoever and is happy to collect his wages and live a pathetic celebrity lifestyle.

Regarding the players that you mentioned, at least they want to play football and improve their careers. Whether they made the right decision is another matter but their love/desire/ambition for the game can't be questioned.

Nationality is and should be irrelevant.

 

[Chinaspur]

Nationality is anything but irrelevant. UEFA has made it more so with the home grown rule.

I'm not suggesting that foreign players have some kind of loyalty deficiency, or are more mercenary. Just that the stats seem to suggest that British players stay longer at a British club than foreign players.

That will have a bearing on stability. Which is relevant to us.

 

[tobi]

The HG rule is default, I intentionally didn't include that in my thinking.

 

[StartingPrice]

And the flip side is we see our own players so often that we know all the flaws in their games.

Yeah, I meant to say familiarity breeds contempt as well - just forgot :grin:

 

[Bingy]

British players are the Championship players of World Football, or somewhere in that classification. Without doubt they are benefiting from the influx of foreign talent, in recent years. Sadly, money dictates that the best talent is attracted to the EPL, but, without £££££ the self-same players will 'jump ship' just as quickly as they arrived. However, perhaps, in such an event, enough has been learned to have a lasting effect? British, and mainly English football, will loose it's lustre if left to it's own devises. Who can tell? COYS!

 

[dontcallme]

As far as having a settled squad is concerned buying British is a good way to go. British players rarely play abroad and unless one fo our players reaches the very highest level there is only a couple of sides in the UK that our players would see as a step up.

However, there are also down sides to this. English players are overpriced, over rated and are often less technically trained than their European counterparts largely due to still having 8 year olds playing on a full 11 aside pitch and moron parents screaming at their kids to get stuck in rather than play football.

Personally I'd rather have somebody like Mendes who was desperate to play football and that ambition meant Carrick had to be at the top of his game to stay in the side rather than a Jenas who seemed happy to play when we had injuries.

Would we have been able to find a British left back as good a BAE for 1.5m, any British midfielder as good as Modric for 14m or a striker with Berbatov's vision and genius for 10.9m?

I'm not sure a settled squad is quite as important as some people think. I'd rather have a Berbatov for 2 good years and then make a 20m profit than a Defoe who plays at one level below the top level for 8 years.

 

[spursandbarca]

or you end with Jenas. 7 million pounds tons of promise and now worth not very much.

Ditto Bentley

 

[PrettyColors]

Best Case scenario: you pay 1m for Lennon.

Worst Case scenario: David Bentley/Jordan Henderson.

There is SOOOOOO much cheap talent outside of the British Isles. If we buy them young enough, it doesn't matter if they're British or not (Soli will be classified as home-grown, as will Gomelt, Luongo, and Veljkovic)

 

[ultimateloner]

For a club like ours it is important we buy the very best british players; gives us stability and room to manuvue in the first team given limited places for foreigners.

To beat the HG rule we need planning, a good youth scouting network and an entire academy devoted to bring players through from a young age aka Barca; it's the only way you can talent and make them useful long term and not having to buy the end product.

 

[spursandbarca]

has to be a mix like Barcelona or Man utd in my opinion.


the madrid, chelsea model doesnt work. Since casillas madrid has produced a 1st team regular from their youth team. Terry came from west ham and who has chelsea produced.