By Andrew Warshaw
August 22- With so few-home grown players able to break into top-flight English clubs because of the foreign invasion, England manager Roy Hodgson feels more of them should chance their arm overseas as once used to be the case.
Whereas Premier League clubs import countless players from around the world, English footballers rarely any longer move the other way.
Former England defender Ashley Cole has just bucked that trend by moving from Chelsea to Roma while the big clubs also occasionally send players out on loan to feeder clubs in Europe to gain experience.
With the England national team suffering from a dearth of world-class talent, Hodgson is convinced more players would benefit from playing their trade abroad.
“We are going to have to accept that some young players – who I think are good enough and can win games for England – will not always be first choice for their teams in England,” Hodgson told the English FA’s website.
“With England we had a very young side at the World Cup and could be even younger going forward. It wouldn’t hurt them at all to go abroad. Most of our players, although they don’t all play regularly, play at very good clubs at a very high level.”
“Even as recently as five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, it would be unthinkable for any England manager to pick a player who wasn’t the first name on his club’s team-sheet. Now more than half who start for us are certainly not the first names on the team-sheet. Sometimes they might not be a regular starter.
“But that’s where we are with our league, where there is a predominance of foreign players, because, of course, the clubs can afford the best players.
“If you are asking me would it be better for some of our players to be playing in good teams abroad rather than warming the bench, then of course as a national team manager I would like to see that. It is not my job to tell players what to do but I would think that, if the opening was there for players to go abroad, then a lot of them would take it.
“In my days (as a coach) in Sweden, where the season runs from April to October, a lot of English players used to go out there and play in the summer. But that doesn’t seem to happen anymore.”
Hodgson stopped short of calling for a quota system restricting the number of foreign players at Premier League clubs.
“National team managers would welcome anything that would protect their players from foreign player invasion but whether the Premier League or the Bundesliga will bring in rules that restrict foreigners then I’m not sure.”