How Money is Ruining England

England during the European Championships in 2016

The amount of money being pumped into clubs across the world has increased year on year for decades now, but the biggest change has possibly been in the last few seasons. The dominance of Spanish clubs and their national team in European and international competition has proved them to be higher than the rest in recent years. There is now so much money in the Premier League that clubs such as Crystal Palace can spend £30million on a player, where that was the world record in the year 2000 when Hernan Crespo moved from Lazio to Parma. But how has all this money effected the England national team and is it a contributing factor for their demise?

Over-Hyping our Youngsters

With Premier League clubs required to have at least eight home grown players in their squad, the pricing of some of our own has risen, but it is also down to us putting too much pressure on them with large price tags. Two years in a row, Manchester City spent around £50million on English players under the age of 23. First with Raheem Sterling from Liverpool and then with John Stones from Everton. Both of those are now the most expensive English players ever, where Alan Sheerer cost Newcastle £15million. Even with players that haven't made a move, they are still the subject of ludicrous reports of big money moves, with Harry Kane and Dele Alli at Tottenham being linked to bids from other clubs in the £80million mark.

We are putting too much pressure on the young players to go and deliver, such as at the European Championships in 2016, even though a lot of the players had never played in it before. We expect so much of young players compared to the older ones and a lot of the time it's hard for them to deal with. Alli, Kane and Sterling all under-performed in the summer and at their clubs they are now doing well. What is good for them is that they have so many young players around them at club level that they have less pressure to perform, but when they have the hopes of a nation when it comes to England games. The best national teams have players in their peak, but we push through our youngsters and expect them to challenge for trophies. If we keep putting so much pressure on the young players, they'll never reach their potential.

Prize Money in the Premier League

Due to the amount of money in the Premier League, it is almost impossible to build for a future and blood through the young players as you get £100million for Premier League safety. This not only does this, but also effects our English managers as they often get sacked in their first or second season due to the money that safety can bring owners of clubs. I know he's not English, but Claudio Ranieri gets sacked 9 months after winning the title, because the Premier League is so important for the owners. The biggest example of the change is that Sir Alex Ferguson didn't win a title with Manchester United in his first five years at the club, but they kept him and he went on to make the greatest legacy in football. The English managers also never get the jobs at the biggest clubs as they're rarely given the chance. The highest placed club with an English manager is Burnley with Sean Dyche, Stoke and West Brom are above them but their managers are Welsh not English. The effect of this is that we don't have English managers with a good CV so we have to employ Southgate and Allardyce as they're our best hope.

The English players don't get a chance to do enough as the new managers come in change tactics and line-ups and then the remainder of the season can be to pick up as many points as possible so young players don't get their chance. This doesn't just happen at the bottom of the league though, as Chelsea do it all the time. They have so many talented youngsters on their books, like Lewis Baker, Dom Solanke, Izzy Brown, the list goes on. I know they have a club that they are partnered with in Vitesse, but they could just keep these players or send them to Premier League clubs. The reason for them not making the squad is because Abramovich wants instant success rather than having a young squad. They are top of the league and the team with the youngest squad in Tottenham are second, but only one player in Chelsea’s first choice eleven is English and that is Gary Cahill, who's 31 now. Compare that with Spurs, they have five English players in their starting eleven, where Danny Rose and Kyle Walker are the oldest at 26. Pochettino has actually done more for the England team than most in recent years and we need more managers that build from the ground up rather than trying to spend all the clubs money to create a team. Most just spend the money to chase the money.

Foreign Imports

With the amount of money being spent on players from abroad to come to this country, we are now filled with players from other nations in our squads, where in other countries they have a base of home-grown players. At Bayern Munich, they have the number one goalkeeper in Germany, the first choice centre backs for the country, and then Germany also had Schweisteiger and Lahm at Bayern. The same happens at Juventus where they feed a lot of their players to the Italian team, with Buffon, chiellini, Bonucci, Barzagli, Marchisio, and also had Pirlo. This is the reason they are so good defensively as well because they're so used to playing with each other. The most common example is in Spain where most of the world beating national team was made up of Barcelona and Real Madrid players. The likes of Casillas, Ramos, Pique, Puyol, Raul Albiol, Jordi Alba, Iniesta, Busquetes, Xavi, David Villa, Xabi Alonso and Pedro.

In England the majority of our teams are full of foreign players, where as I already mentioned, Chelsea only have one English player in their starting eleven, and Manchester City only have Raheem Sterling and John Stones in theirs. You see clubs in other countries with 4 or 5 in almost every club which gives them a larger pool of players to choose from, but we often put players in the England squad where they're just poor. There is a huge lack of confidence in English players that they just can't get into the top sides. It is largely down to the money though as the owners want success straight away in order to try and win silverware, but it had caught up with Manchester City as they bought a lot of players in their prime when their owners took over, now they're in their thirties and they've had to spend high again in young players in the last two years.

So what do you think? Who is at fault? What would you change if you could? Comment below what you think are other problems