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head down vs. head up play, first touch, composure even under press, strategic passing, guile.
that are things that english midfielders lack now and have for at least the last few decades. we produce one/two every decade or so. meanwhile in some nations almost every player possesses these (what they view as) basic qualities.
foreign managers know this so the high skill teams are mainly foreigners with a few brits exceptions/leader-types thrown in.
this especially shows up in midfield and as said before that is why the lampard+stevie-me golden generation midfield failed. this is why we can overpower a team with shelter skelter footy but cannot control a match against high quality opposition. man utd have (had?) the same problem in midfield and so anytime in recent years that we came up a against a team with quality players with these skills in the middle of the park we have been outplayed. even by teams that cost far less at far smaller clubs, even ones in the middle of their own leagues. Villarreal, Sevilla being two notable examples.
let southgate plus england management explain the past and current SENIOR internationals
"This was a critical aim of the EPPP to address long lingering fears, all exacerbated by the sight of Germany — who had conducted their own overhaul of youth development in the wake of a dismal Euro 2000 — and Spain excelling at that 2010 World Cup. Southgate admitted that, across his own 57-cap international career, “we were technically inferior in many games”.
Young players at European clubs were receiving up to twice as much formal coaching and practice than those coming through the English system. So the EPPP sought to increase contact time and, over subsequent years, redesigned the games programme with the introduction of Premier League 2 in what’s called the professional development phase (under-17s to under-21s), new competitions against international opposition and under-21s teams competing in the EFL Trophy in senior football."
"Neil Saunders, the director of football at the Premier League. “One of the challenges we confronted was that the technical qualities demonstrated by players from Spain and France were more advanced than those coming through our system. Now the narrative has shifted."
The EPPP - 10 years on: Has it transformed English football for the better?
Billed as the silver bullet for English football’s problems, we look at how the The Elite Player Performance Plan has changed the game
theathletic.com
As a result of this the next generation might be different
but for now ...
too easy
