Quote Originally Posted by Jezleeds View Post
Like Cook another example of a player wasting away in the reserves at a club that don't need him when he could've been a hero with us. I don't think anyone could argue that both of them would still walk into our team in their positions.

Cook even gets called up for England after playing what, one game, for Bournemouth all season? Unbelievable how we have allowed our great game to be destroyed by the Premier League. The FA has done a lot of terrible things, but when they sold the game to the PL for the cash (remembering they originally agreed that the PL would only have 18 clubs too of course- for the sake of the national team), the way they have destroyed the development of English talent beyond the age groups is the worst.

All of those great lads winning all of those tournaments in the summer - i'll eat my words if the England team is successful in 10 years with 11 of them in it.
Agreed Jez, but lets look a little closer to home (us, as well as other Championship teams), who are (perhaps out of necessity, but sometime (at least) out of a belief that they have to), doing much the same. Abandoning large parts of their youth development for precisely the reasons you give, that such investment results only in being cherry picked by the PL (and usually with those who are picked ending up languishing on the sidelines). There are sides in our division and higher where UK-born/qualifying players are still in the majority, it can be done, it just needs long-term investment and determination (even if the rule book isn't on our side, as it is in Germany for instance).