Watching the Red Devils toy with the Bhoys at home, just one thing struck in my mind, the lack of young home-grown English or british talent driving the team forward.ok it can be argued that of the back four or rather five if you count in the sub Wes Brown, we have 5 defenders who are all part of the English football academy setup. Gary Neville, Johnny Evans , Wes Brown & John O`shea are all products of the United academy and Rio comes from West Ham United academy.
But that’s where it all ends.we have the Scottish Captain Darren Fletcher in the middle of the park, but he is barely a regular at this position. Rooney is a talent who cant and should not be considered part of the Academy setup. He is one of those stars who are born with IT.
My main concern is that of the current young batch only Johnny Evans is good to get a start. We haven’t managed to bring up lads of the caliber of the class of 95. Maybe I am looking too far back, but then again, when these kids come to the the United Academy, they need to be good enough to fill in the big boots of being a United player. We have tried developing obvious English talents like Phil Bardsley ( he started positively with stints at Royal Antwerp and Rangers and was at one period the Right- Back of choice for Martin O`Neil at Aston Villa but once back in United, he just failed to play his natural game. Now hopefully at Sunderland, under the tutelage of Roy Keane he might just be steeled into a better player. That’s what he needs, lots of games and hard gmeas at that to make his United training worthwhile.
Next comes Chris Eagles.this is one player on whom the Gaffer had a lot of faith and hope and gave him a lot of Champions League starts,but in the last 18 months it became painfully obvious that he was just not being able to make the jump into the rigours of first team football at United. Life at the top became too hard for him. So he is banished to plying his trade for Barnsley, down in the Championship.
United faithfuls will remember Jonathan Spector , the American Defender who really shone in his loan spell at Charlon Athletic during 2005-2006.i vividly a match against Liverpool where playing at Centre Back, he made life miserable for the great Stevie G and like any true United fan, I thought we had someone in our ranks who could fill the boots of Steve Bruce and Gary Pallister and Ronny Johnsen, but an injury at the end of the season just before the World Cup killed all his hopes of making it to the US team . Now he is at Villa park where he continues to put it in a lot of solid performances either in the backline or as a CDM.
Adam Eckersley –now at the Dutch first division.
Another great United mystery is Kieran Richardson. He used to be a regular for England under-21s and even played for the Senior English squad under Sven-Goran Ericsson and Steve Maclaren. But his lazy and pompous ways earned him the moniker of “ Lord Snooty” from the Stretford End faithfuls and a subsequent transfer to Sunderland under Keano.
Lee Martin- nothing much is coming out of this talented Winger.He is there but not quite. Am sure he will sold to Charlton or Fulham or maybe even QPR.
The only guy who is making any sort of a mark in Premier league matches is a certain Fraizer Campbell who after a scintillating performance with Hull City where he scored consistently and superbly is being sent out on a loan to Spurs as a counterbalance for Berbatov.
Judging by the way Messers Ramos and Poyet are handling their wards, its wishful thinking that any talent, far alone English talent will get a chance to do anything to save the Lilywhites from going down. At best, they will finish in the lower top-half of the table, where all their precious Continentals like Luka Modric ,Vidran Corluka & Roman Pavluchenko wont even be eligible for an Inter-Toto Cup berth.
So much for being an English c;ub with English talent.
So all we have is one Johnny Evans and one Fraizer Campell who are good enough to play first team for United. For others we will be looking at the small clubs of Brazil and Spain and Central Europe.Alas.
3 comments:
Great effort hon. But, could we have something that would be of interest to lesser mortals?..at least occasionally...
As Maganlal Meghraj might say, "Toh kee houlo?"
Bel paakle kaaker ki?
J.A.P.
A good summary. But unfortunately the money and the sheer pressure to perform in the premier league has skyrocketed. Out of 220 players who start games each weekend in the barclays premier league alone, if we could pick out 50 good, homegrown english players it would be awesome for english football. but given the lure of money, there is so much foreign talent coming in that the clubs are not interested and/or don't have the time/patience to groom young talent coming through who don't cost as much. otherwise, can you imagine kieran richardson getting lazy under the watchful eyes of Sir Alex? he'd have multiple stud wounds on his head from shoes thrown at him every day!!!
Let's just put it down to a temporary dip. English football will hopefully rise again. As soon as we get rid of fat people with no commitment to their national teams. And I am hoping Fabio will realise this sooner rather than later. There is enough talent available to make a good mix of young and experienced players who are eager and COMMITTED!!
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