da brwin： The Premier League this season should, in theory, welcome a whole host of new home grown talent.
da bet vitoria： Under new regulations outlined earlier this summer the Football Association (FA) ruled that every club will have to name a first-team squad of no more than 25, of which a maximum of 17 may not be home grown players.
It goes unsaid that nearly every Premier League club will have to make changes concerning the makeup of their squad this season with 60 per cent of players currently playing for clubs in the Premier League being foreign. Take Chelsea for example, they only have five home-grown players (John Terry, Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, Ross Turnbull and Michael Mancienne). As things stand Carlo Ancelotti will have to name a senior squad of 22 and opportunities will increase for his under-21s. In practice when a player gets injured or suspended managers will have no choice but to turn to youth, and for once, English players will be able to embrace the competition.
The Premier League defines a home-grown player as a player who “irrespective of his nationality or age, has been registered with any club affiliated to the Football Association or the Welsh Football Association for a period, continuous or not, of three entire seasons or 36 months prior to his 21st birthday (or the end of the season during which he turns 21).”
Arsenal’s current first-team squad contains 26 players, of which 13 are counted as home grown, and seven are Under-21s. Therefore the likes of Denilson, Gael Clichy, Nicklas Bendtner, Cesc Fabregas and Alex Song all count as homegrown players, as well as the likes of Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey and Kieran Gibbs.
In addition to this squad of 25 players, each club may use as many under-21 players as they wish. The player must have been born on or after January 1, 1989 to be classed as ‘Under-21’ for this season.
Given England’s failure at this summer’s World Cup thoughts invariable turn to the next generation of players with the hopes of a nation on their shoulders; the problem is, where is this younger generation of talent coming from, these days our top clubs are bloated by overseas talent, talent that is reaping huge benefits of playing in the world’s best league.
For once the FA are starting to recognise the importance of young fresh English talent playing week in week out in the Premier League. Perhaps England’s poor performance in this year’s World Cup actually, in hindsight, was a blessing in disguise. Or perhaps for once we need to hold our hands up and thank the Germans for something.
Premier League Chief Executive Richard Scudamore believes the England team will ultimately reap the reward of the new ruling, which he feels in unlikely to encourage clubs to hoard young overseas players.
While many will see this as a step in the right direction others will argue this is a bad move, none more so than Arsenal manger Arsene Wenger, today quoted to be “not a big fan” – who can blame him, he has now got to actually spend some funds this summer on English talent, sickening.
There’s just one tiny little flaw in this otherwise fantastic idea and that’s the pitfalls of clubs snapping up young talent, to merely fulfil the regulations set out with no intention of ever playing such players.
The likes of Connor Wickham of Ipswich and Charlie Austin of Swindon, both players heavily linked with moves to other clubs, but both players with a lot to learn and who would without doubt be better placed at the present clubs. My only fear for these new regulations is that such player will be far more appealing to Premier League clubs who now have a quota to fulfil – players with the world at their feet may fall by the wayside if we are not careful. You only have to look at Joe Cole’s move to Liverpool and Chris Smalling’s move to Manchester United to see that there are already instances whereby this is already taking place.
Clubs have until the end of August to confirm their squads, and will only be able to amend those listed during the January transfer window. I guess we will just have to wait to see how the Premier League’s big spenders react to these new regulations and what they will in turn mean for our national side – one can only suggest they will be positive results.
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With the PL season nearly upon us, let’s see the WAGS that will be keeping the players on their toes. Click on image to VIEW gallery