Premier League Is Not In Decline . English Football Is

[Guest petercrotch]

You may think that the title of this thread is a contradiction but i stand by what i say .

English football is in decline . Not the premier league for me but English football .

A few weeks ago the two best teams in england were knocked out of the europa league by foreign opposition so it has me asking the question is english football really that bad ?

My answer would be yes it is really that bad it is actually terrible .

People always seem to use this argument that the premier league is "the best league in the world" because its the most exciting .

Well if you are living in england 99 percent of people would say that .

If you were living in italy 99 percent of people would say serie a.

If you were living in spain 99 percent of people would say la liga .

I think the problem with english football is a cultural problem and it starts from grass roots .

I used to play football myself as a youngster (as a defender) nothing special just the typical Sunday league football and the main thing that i can remember the manager saying was when you get the ball , HOOF it down the field and i have noticed that with many teams in the premier league including my team . Manchester United . Its not always the case with us , not even most but it has been creeping in .

When our central defenders and our goalies get the ball they will HOOF it down the field towards the striker unlike the germans,italians and spanish and now even the dutch when they have a goal kick the goalie will 9 times out of 10 kick the ball to the defender and play from the back .

Thats what i think the problem is .

Our defenders (Where play tends to start) do not seem to be comfortable on the ball .

Then there is the issue of team work rate .

If i was to ask an arsenal fan who their best defender is they would say vermalen .

If i asked the same to a united fan he would say vidic .

If i asked the same to a chelsea fan he would say terry .

Now if i asked the exact same question to a barca fan he would (or he should ) say ,messi ,iniesta,sergio,villa,xavi etc .

With barca like many other teams in europe they all track back which imo is defending .

In england they do not .

Which brings me onto the last point .

England do not produce near enough any world class players .

Some might say have we ever produced that many world class players ?

Even when they are world class they sometimes miss the intelligence factor .

We do not produce hardly ANY intelligent footballers .

Lampard , on his day can be world class . Is he an intelligent footballer . No

Gerrard is he world class , hardly but he can be . Is he an intelligent footballer . No .

This is why england always under achieve internationally in big tournaments

Anyway these are just my thoughts but lets have a debate about this .

[Seydou]

WoW

[mark_INIESTA_davies]

WoW

lol I can imagine this dude playing World of Warcraft too.

[Lenny]

Wrong thread

[8BALL]

Football ain't for you son

[Don.j.w]

i agree with alot of that

[time_bomb]

I dont think its english football, but english sport in general, i think other countries put a lot more time, money and importance on grass roots.

Something ive witnessed first hand is ice hockey in france, their grass roots is really good, much better than my experience playing here, their top league isnt the best but they produce world class players, theyve put a few in the NHL, britain never has.

I guess its the same with french football, not the best league in the world but they produce some top quality players, put that down to the grass roots and development.

[Sub_Zero]

I typed out a huge post in reply to this but it got deleted. I'll just make a brief one instead.

What a lot of clubs do nowadays at grass roots level is gather up a load of players, stick them in the youth system and hope they develop. Basically throwing sh*t against a wall and seeing what sticks if you want an analogy.

I'm not an expert but when I was younger I was surrounded by a few incredibly talented lads (I gave pictures and profiles and everything before my post got lost!) and instead of looking after these they just kept bringing in masses of masses of average kids. The really talented ones faded away due to lack of focus and I feel this could of been avoided if the youth system catered mainly for the really talented ones instead of getting in any old rubbish.