not that anyone will pay any notice in the UK- as he's french i'n't he.
He has one good point though. That while there are over 95 French and over 95 Brazilian players registered to play in the Champions League there are only 45 English players. Therefore "at the highest level" England lack choice.
As I have said before I do not suggest limiting the number foreign players, and I don't think Platini is suggesting we challenge European law either, but what this points to is a lack of coaching at the "grassroots level" in the Premiership. Not enough talent coming through. It is a case of coaching-coaching-coaching. As I have also said before. That is, is you give a fuck about these things.
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We are talking about England. This issue won't be addressed until there simply aren't XI English players to choose who ply their trade in the Premiership. Without replacements for those stars such as Rooney and Owen etc, the FA will have no faces to stick on packs of Weetabix etc in their highly lucrative sponsorship deals and will slowly wither and die.
It's strange how Wenger so often gets panned as being part of the problem re: the dearth of opportunities for English talent (as if Wenger somehow turns down equally talentted and driven English kids in favour of anybody who can find Togo on a map) when his young Arsenal players simply highlight the acute nature of the problem. What would be Wenger's defence to fielding more English players and not being as effective a force on the pitch.
The answer would be to take Wenger into the FA to oversee the construction of a youth program (not as England manager). The problem is, I suspect, that in the UK we simply don't have the drive to succeed that those in developing parts of the world have. No amount of coaching is going to produce a player with the sort of personal backgrounds of poverty and travails that you can find in the histories of many African and Latin American footballers.
The ceaseless physicality of the English game means our players are not as flexible (due to requiring more muscle to withstand the challenges - see physique of Michael Owen for further details - I am personally of the mind that Owen would be a far far better player and still have more of his pace if he had gone abroad sooner) and therefore can't be as technical as players from other cultures. What drives it? Is it the fans relentless insistence on "passion" and "hard work" rather than a demand for more flair, more entertainment. I never understand why the working classes want to see a bunch of workmen emulating their own miserable work ethics and re-enacting tribal warfare rather than plump for the escapism of a Cristiano Ronaldo or the artistry of a Fabregas.
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