All change at the bottom
It has been here many times before in the course of 44 years of hurt, of course, but England’s truly dismal showing at this summer’s World Cup has intensified the search for answers to the age-old lament: where did it all go wrong?
The new Premier League rules, whereby registered squads must include at least eight homegrown players, is designed both to limit the stockpiling of foreign imports and thereby, so the theory holds, improve the chances of quality native talent breaking through to boost the flagging morale of the national side. Of course, homegrown doesn’t strictly mean English, but rather refers to players who have been affiliated to clubs in the jurisdiction for at least three seasons before their 21st birthday. So, to pick one stellar example, Cesc Fabregas, who joined Arsenal at 16, seven years ago, qualifies by that definition, a fact which is obviously of purely academic interest to Fabio Capello and, perhaps before very much longer, of only historical interest to Arsene Wenger.
