Greg Dyke and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas (Part Four)

In this, the long overdue fourth part of my discussion of the proposed home grown rule changes, I will look at the justifications for the rule changes.  Obviously, Greg Dyke’s proposed rules are intended to benefit the English National Football Team.  He believes that benefiting the English National Football Team is a worthy goal.  Most likely, most English football fans would agree, but it is important to recognize that the Premier League as a whole and Southampton FC, no doubt to a lesser extent, has fans around the world who do not care about the English team or, if they do care, they want it to lose.

The Premier League, all things being equal, probably does want the English National Team to do well.  However, that cannot and should not be the major focus of the league in the same way that the NBA would probably like the United States Basketball team to win World Championships and Olympic Gold Medals but is not specifically structured to facilitate that.   However, even if we assume that improving the English National Football Teams is a worthy goal that would justify changing the rules to the competitive detriment of the Premier League, there is little reason to believe that the proposed rule changes will help very much.

Consider this article.    Dyke is quoted saying “suddenly an English kid who was out on loan at four different places, who was touch and go to get a game in the first team, is suddenly the top scorer in English Football.”  He continues, “it’s great news.  How many more Harry Kanes are out there who just can’t get a game?”  While obviously, we cannot be sure, the answer is probably not very many.

Dyke’s reasoning is flawed.  Look at the pretty chart at top of the article.  This chart summarizes, without the specific names, the same information I provided in part two of this series.   (Found here.)  In designating players as home grown, the chart uses the current rules, not the proposed new rules.  Nevertheless, there are a lot of grey, unfilled roster slots.  Each of these slots could be filled by an English player right now.  Foreign players, whether highly qualified or mediocre, are not preventing Premier League clubs from signing English players to fill these slots.  Instead, it is the Premier League clubs who, after evaluating the available English talent, have determined that the English players they could afford are worse than nothing.  Thus, the primary barrier to more good English Players playing in the Premier League is the fact that the people responsible for making roster decisions do not think there are more good English players.

While it is certainly possible that the clubs are doing a poor job of identifying and evaluating English talent, they have a strong financial incentive to scout, find, and play good English players.  Certainly, for example, Southampton last year demonstrated the benefits, both on the field and in the financial books, that can accrue to a team who locates and plays good English talent. 

Dyke’s perspective on Harry Kane and the way Tottenham chose to develop him also appears to be misguided.  Harry Kane was born on 28 July 1993.  At the beginning of the 2009-2010 season, he was 16 years old.  In that season, he played 22 times for the under-18s and scored 18 goals.  This was, of course, an outstanding performance.  Possibly, Kane at that point would have been good enough to play for a Premier League club.  Possibly not.  However, in 2009-2010, Tottenham finished in fourth place and qualified for the Championship League.  Given their need to compete in the 2010-2011 Champions League and maintain their Premier League status, Tottenham could not reasonably be expected to experiment with an untried 17-year-old striker.  Certainly, they were not going to give him enough playing time for him to develop his skills.

Instead, over the next several years Tottenham loaned Kane out to four different clubs.  Based on the stats and other information, it appears that he played well but not so well that he seemed like a certain English star of the future.  Why should Tottenham be faulted for sending a good young player out on loan where he could play first team football at an appropriate level rather than retaining him at the home club where he would primarily play with the reserves?  In fact, contrary to Dyke’s implied suggestion that foreign players were blocking Kane’s development, it seems that Tottenham actually followed a sensible plan of development for Kane that should be viewed, at least as of now, as an unqualified success.  Kane’s performance this year is not an illustration of what is wrong with the current system, but a success story.  At 21 years of age he was given a chance to play his way onto both his club’s starting squad and the English National team.

In researching this article, I read “The Way Forward: Solutions to England’s Football Failings” by Matthew Whitehouse.  It seems likely that Whitehouse would endorse Dyke’s proposed changes.  It is also clear that the English National Team is Whitehouse’s highest priority.  Nevertheless, an analysis of the book reveals that these changes in the home grown rules should be one of the FA’s lowest priorities.  According to Whitehouse, England does not have enough qualified youth coaches and many of them are poorly trained.  Even worse, they do not teach English youngsters how to play football in the correct fashion. 

Whitehouse sometimes takes what appear to be contradictory positions.  For example, he argues both that English boys play too much football at a young age and do not play enough football at a young age.  He also believes that English coaches put too much pressure on boys not to make mistakes so that they are scared to take the chances that are necessary to learn more creative and technical skills.  He contends that some boys are weeded out of the system at too young of an age simply because they are mistakenly believed to be too small or not good enough.  In another part of the book, Whitehouse expressed a belief that it is important to get the best players playing together as soon as possible.  He does not explain how this can be done without weeding out some players at too young an age. 

Setting aside the internal contradictions, the primary focus of Whitehouse’s argument is that more needs to be done to give young English players better coaching and more opportunities to play at the highest possible level so they are constantly challenged to improve.  Incidentally, Whitehouse, on several occasions, points to Southampton’s academy as one of the few places in England where things are done correctly.

While I do not purport to be an expert on the best way to train youngsters to become professional footballers, I do know that relatively few youngsters will become professional footballers and even fewer of those will become elite footballers that will strengthen the English team.  It may well be that England and the Premier League are not doing enough to support grassroots football, but the primary purpose of grassroots football should be to provide healthy exercise for young people and to teach them to incorporate regular exercise into their lives.  Identifying and training more elite footballers should be nothing more than a happy by-product.

There are hundreds of areas where young people can learn useful skills and have a chance to excel.  Football is by no means the most important one of them.  Certainly, for example, England could use a few more elite cricket players or golfers or, for that matter, school teacher, doctors, nurses, writers, and, perhaps, consulting detectives.  To the extent Whitehouse or, for that matter, Dyke wants to push more kids into playing football at the expense of other things they can or should be doing including studying, reading, learning computer skills, cooking their own meals, or even playing video games,  they do not have their priorities straight.  The United Kingdom as a nation should place its emphasis on educating its young people, not on encouraging them to put in the 10,000 hours of practice that Whitehouse believes is necessary to become an elite football player.  In fact, no one could fault the nation’s priorities if it decides to buy its footballers from abroad and send more of its young adults to college. 

In response to the most recent television deal, the Premier League has announced that it will spend one billion pounds of its television revenue on grassroots football and other worthwhile causes.  (See here. )  Given that the Premier League has a vested interest in the development in young English footballers this sounds like a worthwhile use of its television money.  However, the Premier League could just as reasonably decide, instead, to spend the same amount of money training nurses.

In any case, it is difficult to see the path to the English National Team that Dyke believes would arise out of his proposed rules.  Possibly he thinks that English Clubs are filled with young English players who are good enough to play in the Premier League but are not being given the opportunity.  This seems unlikely.  A significant number of young English players have been playing in the Premier League in the past several years.  Very likely at the top teams, the path to the first team for such players is blocked but at teams like Southampton, Liverpool, Swansea and Everton, a path to the first team exists.  The new rules could very well reduce the opportunities for good young players because they would virtually compel the richest clubs to gather up as many potentially elite players as they could by age 15 in order to fill their club trained roster slots.

An example of how the new rules could go wrong is illustrated by what happened to Luke Shaw this year.  Last year, Luke Shaw was Southampton’s undisputed number one left back.  So long as he was fit, he got to play.  As a result, he was given every opportunity to develop his skills by playing at the highest level.  He was bought for a huge amount of money by Manchester United who paid him a lot of money but sat him on the bench for most of the year.  Admittedly, he missed many games due to injuries but he did not play in every game where he was healthy.  (Moreover, the Southampton medical staff might have done a better job of keeping him healthy.)

If, indeed, Luke Shaw is the English Left back for the next decade, how has the English National Team benefited by having him at Manchester United?  Is there some magical process by which a player learns to be a better player by sitting around and earning a fortune while watching other even more expensive players play football?  Or would Shaw have learned more if he had spent an additional year at Southampton?

Under the new rules the rich English clubs will have every incentive to buy up as many of the good young English players as they can in order to fill the roster spots.  Most of these players will then sit on the bench at big clubs.  The same problem will exist for older English players.  Under the new rules, clubs will need up to ten association trained players.  Manchester United and other rich clubs will fill their rosters with the best English players they can find even if those players are not good enough to play regularly.  As a result, instead playing repeatedly for mid table or top half league clubs, many of the best English players will find their playing time reduced by these new rules.  We can all name English players who have sat on the bench at big clubs when they could have been playing at smaller clubs. (Ryan Bertrand)  The new rules will encourage more of that.

These consequences of the new rules are not well understood.  Consider this article.  Allegedly, Southampton FC “are superbly placed to cope with the strict work permit rules being brought in by the FA—because of the thriving nature of their academy.”  This simply makes no sense. 

Right now, Southampton has, by my count, nine players who require work permits to play in England:  Ramirez, Gazzaniga, Yoshida, Tadic, Wanyama, Djuricic, Mane, Cropper, and Mayuka.  It is not clear how many of these players would have been able to obtain their work permits under the newly implemented work permit rules.  A few might qualify automatically because of the exception for players for whom the transfer fee is ten million pounds.  Setting aside the special exception for expensive players, only Dusan Tadic appears likely to have been eligible for a work permit at the time of his original transfer to Southampton.  The other players did not have enough playing time for their National team or their National team was not high enough rated to qualify under the new rules. 

It is not clear how our academy would help us solve the problems created by the new rules.  We will be unable to sign as many foreign players and our best English players will be snapped up by the richer clubs.  A more sensible article would have reported that Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, and, maybe, Tottenham were superbly placed to deal with the new rules because virtually all of their transfers are for big enough fees that the new work permit rules would not block their transfers and they have the money to buy up young English players.  In other words the new rules are designed to favor the richer clubs at the expense of the rest of the League.  (Make no mistake, Southampton is better positioned than many other clubs to pay high enough transfer fees to avoid work permit rule limitations.  We are also better positioned to develop at least some of our own players and to steal young English players away from other clubs.)  It seems likely that Southampton management agrees with me since Southampton was the only Premier League club to openly question Dyke about his proposed rules.  (See here and here.)  

Dyke has stated that the rules would not be forced upon the Premier League but would, instead, be implemented in consultation with the Premier League, but Michel Platini appears to back his plan, so perhaps UEFA will adopt the rules for everyone. (See here.)  This would actually be a better solution for the Premier League because, if these rules applied to all nations, English clubs would not be uniquely disadvantaged in European competition.

On the other hand, if EUFA adopts these rules it will greatly disadvantage the smaller nations in international competition.  Under the new rules, it will be much more difficult for the best players from smaller countries to get onto clubs in the better leagues because there will be fewer rosters spots for non-home grown players.  At the same time, the clubs in those small country leagues will be more reluctant to sell their home grown players because they will have more home grown roster spots to fill.  The demand for their players will be reduced as well.  Thus, the new rules will not only unfairly favor the richer clubs in the Premier League (and other Leagues as well) but they will favor the nations who have the better domestic leagues at the expense of the smaller nations.  If the smaller nations have any sense, they will vote down the new rules when UEFA tries to enact them.

In support of the proposed rules, it has been claimed that the rosters of eleven Premier League clubs currently comply with the new rules.  However, most of those clubs are in the bottom half of the league and qualify primarily because they are unable to afford very many foreign players and, instead, include English players on their rosters who are not good enough for the better Premier League clubs.  It is hardly an endorsement of the rules that weaker clubs can comply with them without difficulty.  No doubt every club in the Conference also is in current compliance with these rules.

The English national team will be improved if more potentially elite English players in their late teens and early twenties could get playing time in the Premier League.  These rules will not cause that to happen.  Under current rules, under 21 players can already play without filling roster slots.  Yet, they are not getting very much playing time, especially from the biggest clubs.  These rules will not force the bigger clubs to play young English players.  Unless the FA and the Premier League are willing to introduce rules that not only force English players onto Premier League rosters but also force them into the games, the rules will not have any significant benefit to the English National Team but will reduce competitive balance in the Premier League and reduce the competitiveness of English clubs in European football.  Dyke should withdraw these proposals and come up with something more practical and less destructive.  Possibly, the focus should be on improving youth coaching in English football and the development of young players.  If the young English players of the future are better coached and become better players at a young age, their path into the first team of Premier League clubs will open naturally at least until they are bought and benched by the richer clubs.

Having determined that I think the current proposals are a very bad idea, I thought I should offer my suggestions to improve them.  Obviously, my first choice is simply to leave things as they are.  If that is not possible, I think that the proposals could be vastly improved simply by getting rid of the two roster places for club trained players.  If those roster places are eliminated, it removes the incentive for the richer clubs to try and gather up as many high quality 15 year-old players as possible.  In fact, the richer clubs will have no need to gather such players and would, instead, probably let them develop their skills at other clubs and buy them up in their early 20s when they can fill up their homegrown slots.  This would mitigate one of the effects of the rules that would probably be most harmful to the development of young players.  In effect, it would leave the situation where it is now where richer clubs buy young players, but they generally wait to make sure the young players are good enough.

I also do not believe that there is any need to increase the number of home grown players from eight to twelve.  If the problem that is being addressed is the “alarming” tendency for these home grown players to not be English because they can achieve home grown status  at age 21, it would be enough to enact the changes to the rules that require home grown status to be determined by age 18.  With such changes, players like Fabregas, Scheiderlin, Rafael, and Krul would no longer count as home grown players.  They would have to be fit into the roster as foreign players and their spots would be available to English players.

There is also something to be said for making changes one at a time and seeing what happens.  The changes in the academy systems are less than four years old.  The new work permits rule has just been implemented.  That rule will reduce the number of non- elite, non- EU foreign players in English football.  It will virtually eliminate non-EU players from the lower leagues.  This rule change might make a significant difference.  Why not wait a few years to see what happens before making any other changes? 

I Make Predictions (Round 35)

I picked one of the two midweek games correctly for one point.  Lawrenson and Merson did not pick the midweek games as far as I can determine.  This isn’t really fair since neither of them would have gotten the Liverpool-Hull game right either, but it doesn’t count against them.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 118 out of 229 games correctly for 171 points.  Lawrenson predicted 114 games out of 226 correctly for 156 points. Merson predicted 111 games out of 222 correctly for 157 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. There will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.

Leicester-Newcastle                       1-1

Aston Villa-Everton                         1-1

Liverpool-QPR                                  2-1

Sunderland-Southampton             0-1

Swansea-Stoke                                 2-1

West Ham-Burnley                          1-0

Man U-West Brom                          1-0

Chelsea-Palace                                 2-1

Tottenham-Man City                      1-1

Hull-Arsenal                                      0-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea               38 (we can no longer catch them)

Man City             23

Man U                 21

Arsenal                26

Tottenham          14

Liverpool             14

West Ham             0

Swansea                6

Stoke                      3

Newcastle            -9

Everton                   0

Palace                    -2

Sunderland          -11

West Brom             -7

Aston Villa            -10

Burnley                 -18

Hull                        -10

QPR                       -17

Leicester              -13

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is now 43.  If Leicester loses or we beat Sunderland it will drop to 41. If both happen it drops to 40.

We have clinched 9^th place.   If everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 7^th place. 

 

I Make Predictions (midweek)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got two games right for four points.  His celebrity guest got six games right for eight points.  Merson got three games right for five points.  I got three games right for three points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 117 out of 227 games correctly for 170 points.  Lawrenson predicted 114 games out of 226 correctly for 156 points. Merson predicted 111 games out of 222 correctly for 157 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. However, I don’t know if they will predict the two mid-week games.  If they do, I will link to them here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.  However, the results of these games could change my weekend predictions so I have published them separately.

Hull-Liverpool                   1-2

Leicester-Chelsea            0-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                38 (we can no longer catch them)

Man City              23

Man U                  21

Arsenal                 26

Tottenham           14

Liverpool              17

West Ham             0

Swansea                6

Stoke                      3

Newcastle            -9

Everton                    0

Palace                     -2

Sunderland           -11

West Brom             -7

Aston Villa            -10

Burnley                 -18

Hull                        -10

QPR                       -17

Leicester              -10

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is now 44.  It will drop to 43 if Chelsea beat Leicester.  This week Everton and West Ham reached safety. 

We have clinched 9^th place.   If everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 7^th place.  We cannot clinch anything watching the mid-week games, however.

I Make Predictions (Round 34)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got three games right for five points.  His celebrity guest got two games right for two points.  Merson got four games right for six points.  I got four games right for four points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 114 out of 217 games correctly for 167 points.  Lawrenson predicted 112 games out of 216 correctly for 152 points. Merson predicted 108 games out of 212 correctly for 152 points.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.

Southampton-Spurs       1-1

Burnley-Leicester            1-1

Palace-Hull                       2-1

Newcastle-Swansea       1-1

QPR-West Ham               1-2

Stoke-Sunderland           2-1

West Brom-Liverpool     1-2

Man City-Aston Villa       1-0

Everton-Man U                 1-2

Arsenal-Chelsea               1-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                39 (we can no longer catch them)

Man City              24

Man U                  25

Arsenal                29

Tottenham          17

Liverpool             20

West Ham           3

Swansea              7

Stoke                    6

Newcastle           -5

Everton                1

Palace                   2

Sunderland         -8

West Brom         -4

Aston Villa           -6

Burnley               -14

Hull                        -9

QPR                       -14

Leicester              -9

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is still 45.  This week Stoke reached safety.  The number will drop if Leicester or Sunderland drop points or if Hull loses.

We have still only clinched 12^th place.   Once again, if everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 8^th place.  This time, however, we don’t mind if that happens since the other games about which we care do not have to turn out any particular way to help us clinch 8th.

I Make Predictions (Round 33 minus)

Edit:  I made an error in calculating the points needed to have officially avoided relegation.  I mistakenly calculated the possibilities for Burnley and QPR finishing in 18th but not Leicester.  The correct number is 45 not 44.  I also badly miscalculated Merson's score.  Changes are in bold.

Last round Mark Lawrenson got five games right for 11 points.  His celebrity guest got seven games right for nine points.  Merson got nine games right for 17 points.  I got five games right for nine points.  These are all pretty good scores, but they gained ground on me again.   I also picked the midweek Aston Villa-QPR game (which they did not) and got it wrong.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 110 out of 210 games correctly for 163 points.  Lawrenson predicted 109 games out of 209 correctly for 147 points. Merson predicted 102 games out of 205 correctly for 150 points.

This weekend there are only seven games because of the nasty FA Cup semi-finals.  Since Southampton is still playing, I won’t miss the other games anyway.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter because only Burnley, Leicester, and QPR would be affected.  QPR does not play and Burnley and Leicester are both predicted to lose either way.

Palace-West Brom          2-1

Everton-Burnley              2-1

Leicester-Swansea          1-2

Stoke-Southampton        1-1

Chelsea-Man U                 2-1

Man City-West Ham        2-1

Newcastle-Spurs              1-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order as when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea                   39

Man City                24

Man U                     28

Arsenal                   29

Tottenham             17

Liverpool                20

West Ham                6

Swansea                 11

Stoke                         6

Newcastle               -2

Everton                     1

Palace                       5

Sunderland             -8

West Brom             -4

Aston Villa              -6

Burnley                 -11

Hull                          -9

QPR                       -12

Leicester                -9

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation is now 45.  So this week Swansea reached safety.  Wohoo.  If Leicester loses to Swansea, the number will drop to 44.

We have clinched 12^th place.  (Isn’t it amazing that since Pardew moved to Crystal Palace they have picked up 17 more points than Newcastle in just 13 games?) If everything goes right this weekend, we could clinch 8^th place.  Again, however, that is not really having things go right for us since it would mean that Manchester City beat West Ham and that is not our preference.

Greg Dyke and His Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Ideas (Part Three)

In part one of this series I discussed the negative effects the recently enacted changes in the work permit rules will have on Southampton and the Premier League in general.  See here.

In my second post, I summarized the home grown player status of each of the 20 Premier Leagues both under current rules and under the newly proposed rules.  See here.

In this post, I address the problems with these proposed rules and their likely negative effects on English club football. (For ease of discussion I will usually refer to non-home grown players under the proposed rules as foreign players.  I will refer to home grown players under those rules as English players.  Of course it is possible for a non-English play to become a home grown player and by the same token, it is possible for an English player not to qualify as home grown in England.  Under the new rules both circumstances would be relatively rare.)

These rules will be disastrous both for the competitive balance of the Premier League itself and for the future performance of English Teams in European competition.  The richer clubs will become stronger relative to the other clubs in the Premier League, while becoming weaker relative to the elite clubs in the rest of Europe. 

It is important to understand that England’s status in European competition has already been put in jeopardy by the poor performance of English clubs in Europe over the last two years.  I expect to post a blog discussing this issue fairly soon.  When and if I do, a link to that post will be found here.  To summarize: because England is one of the top three rated nations, four English teams go to the Champion’s League.  Given the recent performances of English teams in European competition, there is a real risk that by the end of the 2015-2016 season, England will drop into fourth place.  If that happens in 2017-2018 only three English clubs would qualify for the Champion’s League.  Since, the FA claims to want more English players playing club football at the highest level, taking an English club out of the Champions league seems suboptimal.

As I explained in part two of this series, the proposed rules would, when compared to the current rosters, require the Premier League, as a whole, to find approximately 50 more home grown players.  These are not homegrown players who will be shifted around the Premier League from one club to another.  These are the number of additional English players that need to be added to the Premier League to fill the clubs’ rosters.  Admittedly, 19 of these roster openings are for club trained players who are not so easy to obtain so really only approximately 30 players are needed.  There are a number of home grown players who would count as club trained for a different club—such as Nathan Dyer, who would be club trained for Southampton.  If the new rules are implemented, it may be that some clubs will re-sign former players who would qualify as club trained.

Kicking 50 foreigners out of the Premier League and replacing them with 50 English players will give more playing time to English players.  It might even improve the English National Team, slightly.  However, it will definitely reduce the quality of play in the Premier League.  No one could seriously contend that there are 50 English players out there who are good enough to play in the Premier League but are stuck in the Championship because their path has been blocked by inferior foreign players.

No doubt the proponents of these rule changes would contend that the large number of foreign players block the progress of young English players into the squads of Premier League teams.  This might be true, but these rules will not solve this problem and, even if they mitigate it slightly, they will do so at great cost to competitiveness in both Europe and within the Premier League itself. 

Consider, for example, Chelsea.  Right now Chelsea is operating with a very small squad.  Of the 25 players they are allowed to list on their main squad, they only have 18 players listed.  In addition, they have only given significant playing time to one underage player.  Since they only have three home grown players, this means that they have room under current rules for five more home grown players and two more foreign players. Thus, it does not appear that, right now, foreign players are taking up roster spots that could be filled with English players.  Quite simply Chelsea, as of now, does not seem to want any more English players.

If the new rules were in effect this season, Chelsea would be permitted 13 foreign players.  Under the new rules, 16 of their current players qualify as foreign.  In other words, Chelsea would have to dump three foreign players.  They could replace those players with up to ten home grown players one of whom must be club trained.  How would they go about filling their roster?

They would probably get rid of Peter Cech and replace him with a home grown back up goal keeper.  It is less clear which two of the remaining foreign players they would let go.  However, since Chelsea has no truly bad players, whatever players are forced to leave would weaken the team.  Chelsea would replace them by using its financial strength to buy up to ten home grown players from other Premier League teams.

Consider the consequences of these potential transactions.  If we assume that Chelsea could not persuade Manchester United, Manchester City, or Arsenal to give up their home grown players, it means that the players would be taken from the teams that are already significantly weaker than Chelsea.  Looking at the clubs below the top four, I do not see a lot of home grown players who jump out as good enough to play for Chelsea.  Therefore, Chelsea will need to sign players who, by their current standards, are not good enough to play for them—thereby weakening their squad—while signing the better players from other clubs—thereby weakening those squads as well.  Imagine, if Chelsea were to simply sign a single English player from each of ten teams currently in fifth to 14th place.  They might, for example, sign Henderson, Clyne, Mason, Cork, Downing, Begovic, Zaha, Colback, Baines, and McManaman.

I am not claiming that any one of these specific transfers would be especially likely.  However, similar transfers would be virtually an inevitable consequence of the new rules.  Even though these players are, by current standards, mostly not good enough to play for Chelsea, they would be better than nothing.  Likely, given the way Chelsea is currently operating, they would not sign the maximum ten players and would continue to operate with a smaller roster.  Nevertheless, one thing is clear, even if these players are not currently good enough for to play for Chelsea, they are certainly good enough to play for their current clubs each of which would be noticeably weakened by their departure.

Moreover, Chelsea is not alone in its need for English players.  Under the proposed rules, Manchester City would need to replace six foreign players. Arsenal would have to dump six foreign players.  Manchester United would not have to dump any foreign players but would still have room for six more home grown players;  Liverpool is in an interesting situation under the new rules.  Very likely, they would lose players to the clubs above them but would be first in line to take players from the clubs below them.  As the roster currently stands, they would not have to dump any foreign players but would have room for four more home grown players.  However, any English players they lost would need to be replaced. Totterham would have to dump four foreign players.  Taken as a whole, the six richest clubs would need to replace 19 foreign players with at least that many top quality English players from the rest of the League.  In other words, they would need more additional top quality English players than actually exist.

A similar effect would operate on the mid-level teams like Southampton, Swansea, and West Ham, who would need to replace their excess foreign players and their English players taken by the bigger teams with English players from the smaller teams.  The effects would cascade all the way down the English Football Pyramid albeit with diminishing effects.  Perhaps the Conference North and Conference South teams would not be significantly affected.

Southampton, for example, currently has 21 players on its roster.  Under the new rules, only six of them would be home grown which means we would have to get rid of two foreign players and replace them with up to six English players of whom two would have to be club trained.  While no doubt we can all look at our current roster and identify two foreign players that we could lose without much of a problem, it is important to remember that these loses would be in addition to losses of the home grown players snapped up by the richer clubs.  Is it really even plausible to suggest that, given the increased demand for good English players these rules would bring about, that we could replace these players without significantly reducing the quality of the squad?  I doubt it. Certainly, we would be weakened more than Chelsea or Manchester United.

The problem would be even worse for the clubs at the bottom of the Premier League or in the Championship who would find any of their players who could plausibly play at the Premier level snapped up by richer clubs.

The result of the all this roster movement would be that the best teams in the Premier League would be somewhat weaker while the teams immediately below them would be moderately weaker and the teams at the bottom of the League would be significantly weaker.  The teams in the Championship would be weaker still—especially since the new work permit rules mean that very few, if any, non-European foreigners will be playing in the Championship.

The effects on English Clubs participating in Europe would also be significant.  There has been a lot of talk recently about the disappointing performances of English teams in European Competitions.  If the new home grown rules are not mirrored throughout the top European Leagues, these disappointing performances will only get worse.  Not only will the good foreign players for whom there is no longer room in the Premier League be signed by other European Clubs but these Clubs would not be weakened either by the more restrictive work permit rules already in effect in England or by England’s restrictive home grown rules. Unlike English Clubs, the Champions League contenders from other nations will not be required to replace foreign players with inferior home grown players.  Clubs in Spain, Germany, and Italy will not be forced to replace South Americans and Africans with inferior Spaniards, Germans, and Italians, respectively.

There is one way English Clubs playing in Europe could mitigate the adverse effect of these rules but I do not believe that method would be very practical.  English Clubs could sign four foreign players for their European roster who would be left off their domestic roster.  However, I doubt that top quality players would want to sign knowing that they would only be eligible to play in European Competition games?  For some, it might amount to a six game season.

In my fourth and final post I will discuss why I believe these rules will not help the English National Team and analyze some of the stupid reasons given in support of these rules.

I Make Predictions (Round 32 plus)

Last round Mark Lawrenson got five games right for seven points.  His celebrity guest got five games right for nine points.  Merson got six games right for eight points.  I got four games right for four points.

Since I started making these predictions I have predicted 105 out of 199 games correctly for 154 points.  Lawrenson predicted 104 games correctly for 136 points. Merson predicted 97 games out of 195 correctly for 133 points. 

There is a single mid-week game which I would be entitled to predict separately and then make my weekend predictions based upon that information.  However, due to the way my system works that game would not affect any of the weekend predictions—I am still going to predict Spurs to beat Aston Villa and Chelsea to beat QPR no matter what they do against each other on Tuesday.  Admittedly, if QPR scores 17 goals against Aston Villa that would change the predicted score against Chelsea, but I feel I can ignore that possibility.

I will link to Lawrenson’s and Merson’s new predictions when they are published. They will be found here and here. I don’t know if they are going to make predictions on the mid-week game.  It they do, their predictions will be found here and here.

Here are my predictions using the same rules outlined here.    Once again, my modifications for clubs that have played a different number of games do not matter.

Aston Villa-QPR              2-1

Swansea-Everton           2-1

Southampton-Hull         1-0

Sunderland-Palace         1-1

Spurs-Aston Villa             2-1

West Brom-Leicester     2-1

West Ham-Stoke             2-1

Burnley-Arsenal               0-1

QPR-Chelsea                     0-1

Man U-Man City              1-0

Liverpool-Newcastle      2-1

MAGIC NUMBERS

Here are our magic numbers for the entire League as explained here:

I have left the clubs in the same order from when I first posted this list because I find it more interesting that way.

Strictly speaking magic numbers do not go negative—when the number reaches zero you have clinched finishing ahead of that team—that is why the number is magic.  Nevertheless, I am going to continue calculating negative magic numbers because that information is useful to me in comparing the various clubs.  Anyone who is bothered by this can just treat all negative numbers as zero.

Chelsea              42

Man City            30

Man U                31

Arsenal               32

Tottenham         23

Liverpool             23

West Ham           11

Swansea              16

Stoke                    11

Newcastle           4

Everton                 6

Palace                   8

Sunderland         -2

West Brom           2

Aston Villa           -3

Burnley                 -5

Hull                       -3

QPR                       -6

Leicester              -6

The points total mathematically needed to avoid relegation dropped is now 47. 

We have still only clinched 14^th place.  If everything goes right we could clinch 11^th place this week.  However, that is using the term “goes right” very loosely since it involves Newcastle losing to or drawing with Liverpool and, obviously, that would be something going wrong for us.  For that matter, we probably would prefer that Everton beat Swansea.