Lack of English players in the squad

[OneMoSalah 8,609]

Personally I don't have a problem with choosing the likes of Courtois over Hart, Fabregas over Henderson. For me it's only a problem when there's such little difference in quality. Players like Salah and Zouma could easily be replaced by similarly talented English players.

Perhaps yeah but you look at how much it cost could to say replace Salah with say Sterling or Lallana. An extra 10 or 15M on top of what we paid for Salah. Fuck knows how much Sterling could go for as well, he could go for anything beyond 50M

[Jase 43,479]

What do you really think any of those 3 would start week in week out for Chelsea Jason? Cmon man....

The point was there aren't very many English players who are at the same level as players like Courtois, Fabregas, Hazard and Costa who are gonna be the backbone of this team for the next 5-7 years.

I don't see how suggesting those 3 (or 2 without Henderson) could start is a ludicrous idea anyway. They might not be at the level of those players you mentioned above but with the right coaching, I don't see why they can reach that especially when we all know the qualities they possess.

On a side note, we have completely deviated from the main topic of this thread.

Wilshere over Fabregas? doubt it. Not even over Oscar.

It doesn't even matter though the fact that you're struggling to find even three names of English players who can get into the side shows what type of talent Chelsea have assembled and the gulf in class compared to the English players.

If you have really read my posts and understand it, you would know that I agree that there aren't many top talens in the England NT. Majority of them are poor-average but there are a few who are actually good, really good. It's just that some people refuse to admit that and prefer to categorize everyone as rubbish just because most of them are.

[The Chels 2,502]

Perhaps yeah but you look at how much it cost could to say replace Salah with say Sterling or Lallana. An extra 10 or 15M on top of what we paid for Salah. Fuck knows how much Sterling could go for as well, he could go for anything beyond 50M

Those are the 'big'-name upcoming English players though. I don't suggest we buy those but I doubt it would be hard to find young English players who could fill the roles of Salah, Zouma, Van Ginkel, etc. even within our own ranks (e.g. Baker).

[Tomo 21,681]

Wilshere over Fabregas? doubt it. Not even over Oscar.

It doesn't even matter though the fact that you're struggling to find even three names of English players who can get into the side shows what type of talent Chelsea have assembled and the gulf in class compared to the English players.

I don't think Jason is saying we should buy English players at the expense of our best players, that's upsurd. However there are players like AOC who in my opinion could easily be squad players here.

Like Le Chels said would we be worse with say AOC instead of Salah? for example.

[The Skipper 20,593]

I don't think Jason is saying we should buy English players at the expense of our best players, that's upsurd. However there are players like AOC who in my opinion could easily be squad players here.

Like Le Chels said would we be worse with say AOC instead of Salah for example.

AOC would potentially be pushing for a starting spot here depending on form and development I think, can't say the same about Salah tbh.

[Jase 43,479]

I don't think Jason is saying we should buy English players at the expense of our best players, that's upsurd. However there are players like AOC who in my opinion could easily be squad players here at the very least.

Like Le Chels said would we be worse with say AOC instead of Salah? for example.

Fixed.

[Chelsea Legend 11 4,062]

I don't see how suggesting those 3 (or 2 without Henderson) could start is a ludicrous idea anyway. They might not be at the level of those players you mentioned above but with the right coaching, I don't see why they can reach that especially when we all know the qualities they possess.

On a side note, we have completely deviated from the main topic of this thread.

If you have really read my posts and understand it, you would know that I agree that there aren't many top talens in the England NT. Majority of them are poor-average but there are a few who are actually good, really good. It's just that some people refuse to admit that and prefer to categorize everyone as rubbish just because most of them are.

I have read your posts and if you read mine you would see that I don't think overspending for English talent is prudent with FFP. If you want to see English players in the team then you'll have to wait till Jose is here for more than 4-5 years. And for all of you talking about culture and tradition there is no better way to preserve that than by producing our own.

[Fernando 6,374]

The thing is, there are quite a few really good English players knocking about right now, the team that played Norway have the potential to be a really good team unit, I tell you the problem and that's the dinosaur sitting in the dugout.

Im not saying we should splash money on any Tom, Dick or Harry but they are some talented young English players that would work in our system as squad players at the very least.

As squad players?

Yes then that agree.

However if we buy a player to be a squad player then people would still complain.

This is why I don't think the club is buying any of them.

It rather produce them and use them as a squad player.

[Tomo 21,681]

As squad players?

Yes then that agree.

However if we buy a player to be a squad player then people would still complain.

This is why I don't think the club is buying any of them.

It rather produce them and use them as a squad player.

There are also ones like AOC who on top form could push for a starting place on merit.

[iseah100 5,612]

There are also ones like AOC who on top form could push for a starting place on merit.

Except for the fact he's made of glass. He has never been in such form where he can get into our XI. One day maybe.

[Barbara 15,149]

I get that it's an English club, but I'M NOT, and most of the fans aren't. Only a small percentage of the Chelsea fan base is English. Can't Belgian Chelsea fans identify with Tibo and Hazard? And German fans with Schurrle? And Brazilian fans with Ramires, Oscar, Willian and Costa?

I get that you're English and want an English core, but the club will ALWAYS have an identity, with or without English starters. I would rather have a good foreign player than a mediocre English one. But that's just me.

That being said, I would LOVE for some of the young guys like Baker, RLC, etc to make it to our squad.

I'm not English - I love having Brazilians players in my team, but I absolutely hate that we don't have an English core because it feels like we've missed our identity.

I know it's hard because England hasn't been producing the top players in the world right now, but we had Daniel up to a few years ago and he was better than anything in the attack we had bar Didier Drogba and hopefully now Costa. There are decent English players that could be here and the fact that there are less and less of them playing a part here makes me feel like Chelsea are losing their identity as an English club - and that will ALWAYS interfere in perception. Which is why Bayern, Barcelona, United and even Real Madrid are such big names all around the world. You look to those team and you see German club, Spanish clubs, English club. Whether we want to admit or not, a club needs to keep its identity to be more marketable - and I think it was in this thread I read people talking about how little marketable we are. It helps for a team from a certain country to have a strong link with the culture, the style and a core of players from that country to make it a strong brand. That's how marketing works.

Clubs go global especially because of weak leagues around the world. Because there isn't a better league in their country (or for the minority that is just crazy about the sport that they'll watch the best leagues in the world regardless) those fans turn to EPL for example and if they develop a liking for the league, they'll choose a team to support (there are many, many, many people that watch foreign leagues and don't support any team). There's the bandwagoners that will choose the flavor of the month which is whoever has the biggest stars and more titles. A few years down the road they change their allegiance because now another team has the biggest stars or more titles. But normally you need to feel like the team you like represent the league, culture and style of their country. Chelsea were able to keep that even when Roman was here. We've had many foreign players prior to Roman and we kept many English players in the early years after he bought the club, but lately those players are being replaced by foreigns... that's not a good sign, that's not how this is supposed to be and that affects our marketability.

[Fernando 6,374]

I'm not English - I love having Brazilians players in my team, but I absolutely hate that we don't have an English core because it feels like we've missed our identity.

I know it's hard because England hasn't been producing the top players in the world right now, but we had Daniel up to a few years ago and he was better than anything in the attack we had bar Didier Drogba and hopefully now Costa. There are decent English players that could be here and the fact that there are less and less of them playing a part here makes me feel like Chelsea are losing their identity as an English club - and that will ALWAYS interfere in perception. Which is why Bayern, Barcelona, United and even Real Madrid are such big names all around the world. You look to those team and you see German club, Spanish clubs, English club. Whether we want to admit or not, a club needs to keep its identity to be more marketable - and I think it was in this thread I read people talking about how little marketable we are. It helps for a team from a certain country to have a strong link with the culture, the style and a core of players from that country to make it a strong brand. That's how marketing works.

Clubs go global especially because of weak leagues around the world. Because there isn't a better league in their country (or for the minority that is just crazy about the sport that they'll watch the best leagues in the world regardless) those fans turn to EPL for example and if they develop a liking for the league, they'll choose a team to support (there are many, many, many people that watch foreign leagues and don't support any team). There's the bandwagoners that will choose the flavor of the month which is whoever has the biggest stars and more titles. A few years down the road they change their allegiance because now another team has the biggest stars or more titles. But normally you need to feel like the team you like represent the league, culture and style of their country. Chelsea were able to keep that even when Roman was here. We've had many foreign players prior to Roman and we kept many English players in the early years, but lately those players are being replaced by foreigns... that's not a good sign, that's not how this is supposed to be and that affects our marketability.

I like you, but I don't think you should be bad mouthing bandwagoners and people going for the flava of the month since you have many teams you like. Real Madrid, inter and now Chelsea.

Still like you, but just thought that was a bit hypocritical of you.

I have no problem with such people by the way.

[Tomo 21,681]

Except for the fact he's made of glass. He has never been in such form where he can get into our XI. One day maybe.

We have the best medical team around, ever since we appointed Eva we haven't really had a long term injury, Romeu aside.

[Barbara 15,149]

I do believe bringing the English identity back to the football club is essential to Jose, and it will come in time with the introduction of young players and buying young English targets in future transfer markets, But the most important thing was to bring our Starting 11 and bench to a world class level first.

We must be patient, as the integrating of young players will only be successful with managerial stability at this club it seems.

and do you think Mourinho wouldn't be concerned about making sure we have an English core unless it was important? Yes, we have to fill homegrown quotas on EPL and UCL, but there's more than that.

Most people here agree he's one of the best managers in the world and most people here trust his judgment. It should tell them something that this man has been saying for a while it is important for Chelsea to have more English players and that we should be promoting them from our ranks.

He hasn't been saying those things just to suck the English media up... there's a very good reason behind those statements. The moment a club starts losing its identity in its own country that's when things start to go downhill.

Fans around the world don't sustain Chelsea. Local fans do and that's how it'll always be... Fans around the world make the club global...

I like you, but I don't think you should be bad mouthing bandwagoners and people going for the flava of the month since you have many teams you like. Real Madrid, inter and now Chelsea.

Still like you, but just thought that was a bit hypocritical of you.

I have no problem with such people by the way.

and you must have missed the memo when I became a fan of each of those teams. I became Inter as a child when we couldn't win SHIT because back then the Italian league was the best in the world and I wanted a team to support. Milan and Juve - and I guess another one I can't remember - were MUCH better than Inter nearly 30 years ago.

You said it yourself that RM only became popular because of the Galacticos (first of all, that's a lie), so why I'm a fan for 20 years then?

Also I'm not offending people saying they pick the flavor of the month. I don't have a problem with that as long as they stick with them when they aren't winning anymore. Had I become a Barcelona, Juventus or anything fan in the many years my teams didn't win shit in their leagues?

Most fans in this forum are Chelsea fans, regardless of the reasons they chose to support Chelsea. I don't need to mention we represent a fraction that isn't worth mentioning and doesn't represent anything in the universe of fans - unless the English fans - do I? Or do you think a few thousand members represent Chelsea's support around the world. Many Chelsea supporters have been Liverpool and Arsenal fans at one point and will become whatever they want in another. They're occasional fans and you have to be naive or badly informed not to know those things happen around the world. It's a very small percentage of global fans that are truly committed to the team.

[Barbara 15,149]

Let me separate this post from the previous.

I'm not going to add another quoted post here, but I read last page someone making position by position English players that couldn't displace our foreign players. That's missing the point completely...

The right way to ask those questions is (and that's regardless of the nationality of our players): can XXX play the role as a XXX for Chelsea?

For example, can Daniel Sturridge lead our attack line? YES, he can. It doesn't matter if Costa is better suited or not - and there might be better strikers than Costa in the world. A team is about an harmonic, working, balanced system.

I can name a few CBs better than JT and many better than Cahill. Can JT and Cahill lead our defense? Well they did it brilliantly last season.

It's this obsession that we need to have THE VERY BEST PLAYER IN THE POSITION for all the 11 positions that lead to people to think like that.

We can have a mix of English players with foreigns that won't compromise our title ambitions. We did it in the past, we won UCL with an English core, we won EPL with an English core, United and Liverpool won UCL with an English core, United won EPL with an English core.

So let's say we have a few between JT, Cahill, Sterling, Wilshere, Daniel... does it mean we can't win shit anymore because Kompany, Mangala, Thiago Silva, or Hazard, Reus, James or Vidal, Modric, Alonso or Costa, Cavani, Falcao are playing somewhere or are better than those we do have?

That's the thing that is so hard for people to grasp around in the last few pages. We can be competitive with a few English names thrown there because guess what? Azpilicueta, Ramires, Oscar, Salah, Ivanovic (as a CB), Willian among others aren't the very top players in the world and still most of those guys almost led us to EPL title or UCL final last season. If we had Daniel Sturridge we would have won the league last year and we could have beaten Atletico, for example. Wilshere can displace Ramires or Oscar imo. Sterling can displace Willian and even Schurrle. Yes, Daniel can't displace Costa now, but he could have won us the league last season regardless. I don't get this obsession about having the top world class player for each position. I've said many, many, many times that not even RM or Barça have that, it only happens on fucking Football Manager, in real life teams win titles and dominate the football scenario without having the very best in every position and England has produced players decent enough to make a job as long as the team is balanced. Barcelona could have players better than Mascherano and Busquets and whoever was playing their LB (can't remember) when they were dominating. That amazing Bayern team of two seasons ago could use a better CB, a better CF but they had balance and they worked amazingly without having the 11 best rated players in FM...

[Fernando 6,374]

and you must have missed the memo when I became a fan of each of those teams. I became Inter as a child when we couldn't win SHIT because back then the Italian league was the best in the world and I wanted a team to support. Milan and Juve - and I guess another one I can't remember - were MUCH better than Inter nearly 30 years ago.

You said it yourself that RM only became popular because of the Galacticos (first of all, that's a lie), so why I'm a fan for 20 years then?

Also I'm not offending people saying they pick the flavor of the month. I don't have a problem with that as long as they stick with them when they aren't winning anymore. Had I become a Barcelona, Juventus or anything fan in the many years my teams didn't win shit in their leagues?

Most fans in this forum are Chelsea fans, regardless of the reasons they chose to support Chelsea. I don't need to mention we represent a fraction that isn't worth mentioning and doesn't represent anything in the universe of fans - unless the English fans - do I? Or do you think a few thousand members represent Chelsea's support around the world. Many Chelsea supporters have been Liverpool and Arsenal fans at one point and will become whatever they want in another. They're occasional fans and you have to be naive or badly informed not to know those things happen around the world. It's a very small percentage of global fans that are truly committed to the team.

First of all I didn't said real Madrid became popular because of the galácticos.

They was popular, but when the galácticos era came out changed the whole perception of Spanish team.

It became the world best 11.

People didn't care if they had players from Spain or not, what attracted more people to the club was the stars in one team. While loathed by others for buying the league and what not.

So in the modern era that is what sparked the popularity amongst the younger people.

Cause they can have great history like Ajax but if they don't revolutionized they will go the way of the dinosaurs.

The galácticos changed the game into this modern we have now of having the world best 11 by paying big.

And I don't get your point talking about the occasion fans. I have no problem with them.

I just said that you shouldn't be bad mouthing them as that makes you a hypocrite.

[iseah100 5,612]

Let me separate this post from the previous.

I'm not going to add another quoted post here, but I read last page someone making position by position English players that couldn't displace our foreign players. That's missing the point completely...

The right way to ask those questions is (and that's regardless of the nationality of our players): can XXX play the role as a XXX for Chelsea?

For example, can Daniel Sturridge lead our attack line? YES, he can. It doesn't matter if Costa is better suited or not - and there might be better strikers than Costa in the world. A team is about an harmonic, working, balanced system.

I can name a few CBs better than JT and many better than Cahill. Can JT and Cahill lead our defense? Well they did it brilliantly last season.

It's this obsession that we need to have THE VERY BEST PLAYER IN THE POSITION for all the 11 positions that lead to people to think like that.

We can have a mix of English players with foreigns that won't compromise our title ambitions. We did it in the past, we won UCL with an English core, we won EPL with an English core, United and Liverpool won UCL with an English core, United won EPL with an English core.

So let's say we have a few between JT, Cahill, Sterling, Wilshere, Daniel... does it mean we can't win shit anymore because Kompany, Mangala, Thiago Silva, or Hazard, Reus, James or Vidal, Modric, Alonso or Costa, Cavani, Falcao are playing somewhere or are better than those we do have?

That's the thing that is so hard for people to grasp around in the last few pages. We can be competitive with a few English names thrown there because guess what? Azpilicueta, Ramires, Oscar, Salah, Ivanovic (as a CB), Willian among others aren't the very top players in the world and still most of those guys almost led us to EPL title or UCL final last season. If we had Daniel Sturridge we would have won the league last year and we could have beaten Atletico, for example. Wilshere can displace Ramires or Oscar imo. Sterling can displace Willian and even Schurrle. Yes, Daniel can't displace Costa now, but he could have won us the league last season regardless. I don't get this obsession about having the top world class player for each position. I've said many, many, many times that not even RM or Barça have that, it only happens on fucking Football Manager, in real life teams win titles and dominate the football scenario without having the very best in every position and England has produced players decent enough to make a job as long as the team is balanced. Barcelona could have players better than Mascherano and Busquets and whoever was playing their LB (can't remember) when they were dominating. That amazing Bayern team of two seasons ago could use a better CB, a better CF but they had balance and they worked amazingly without having the 11 best rated players in FM...

I completely agree with most of this. While we could have won with Sturrdge and Wilshere could replace Ramires, it doesn't mean the team loses it's identity without an English core. Like you and me, most of Chelsea's fans are foreign. So we will love the club(except for those bandwagon fans we mentioned earlier) whether we have an English core or not. It'd be nice to have Shaw, Wilshere, and Sturridge, but if we wanted to buy them they would be so much more than a foreign player. That's where the problem is, why spend so much when we can get a better player for less? If we get guys like Ake, Bamford and Baker in the team they will probably be my favorites cause they're English and from our club, but that doesn't mean our club doesn't have an identity if they don't make an impact. Your team is also not gauranteed to succeed with English players. When JT, Cole and Lampard led our team they were some of the BEST players in the world. That's the difference. We can't have mediocre players starting 50+ games a year for us, even if they are English. I'm sure we will get our HG quota up next year, but the identity of the club will always be there as long as Mou, Roman, and others are there.

[Barbara 15,149]

First of all I didn't said real Madrid became popular because of the galácticos.

They was popular, but when the galácticos era came out changed the whole perception of Spanish team.

It became the world best 11.

People didn't care if they had players from Spain or not, what attracted more people to the club was the stars in one team. While loathed by others for buying the league and what not.

So in the modern era that is what sparked the popularity amongst the younger people.

Cause they can have great history like Ajax but if they don't revolutionized they will go the way of the dinosaurs.

The galácticos changed the game into this modern we have now of having the world best 11 by paying big.

And I don't get your point talking about the occasion fans. I have no problem with them.

I just said that you shouldn't be bad mouthing them as that makes you a hypocrite.

I like you and I respect you, but don't say something stupid. Occasional fans are fans that change their allegiance according to the occasion and there are many of them, especially in countries where football isn't that strong.

I'd be an hypocrite if I said it's wrong for fans from other countries to support a team somewhere else as I'm one of them. I've never changed teams in my life. So how does it make me an hypocrite? Go read the dictionary before saying something so stupid. You either don't know what occasional is or hypocrite. The thing is you can't call me hypocrite for saying said people exist. I didn't even judge them... I just said they exist and they're not committed with the team. I made a point to say it doesn't matter why a fan decided to support a team, as long as they stick with that team through thin and thick. You can call me a hypocrite all night if you want and while I won't like it,it could make sense... but what you just said makes as much sense as the sun gravitating around the Earth...

As for the rest of your post, well, there are so many weak points there that I might just stop it here because combined with what I just said above we could end in a fight, which I don't want.

I completely agree with most of this. While we could have won with Sturrdge and Wilshere could replace Ramires, it doesn't mean the team loses it's identity without an English core. Like you and me, most of Chelsea's fans are foreign. So we will love the club(except for those bandwagon fans we mentioned earlier) whether we have an English core or not. It'd be nice to have Shaw, Wilshere, and Sturridge, but if we wanted to buy them they would be so much more than a foreign player. That's where the problem is, why spend so much when we can get a better player for less? If we get guys like Ake, Bamford and Baker in the team they will probably be my favorites cause they're English and from our club, but that doesn't mean our club doesn't have an identity if they don't make an impact. Your team is also not gauranteed to succeed with English players. When JT, Cole and Lampard led our team they were some of the BEST players in the world. That's the difference. We can't have mediocre players starting 50+ games a year for us, even if they are English. I'm sure we will get our HG quota up next year, but the identity of the club will always be there as long as Mou, Roman, and others are there.

First of all, thank you for understanding I wasn't labeling people here as the bandwagon fans, but those who have a new team in the same league every few years - and they're very common because most of those people aren't committed with the club. One example of that is how many Torres fanboys and fangirls started supporting Chelsea because of Blondie and then we the fans started rightfully badmouthing him they turned against THE CLUB because of Blondie. Those guys are now AC Milan fans... Can people deny it happens? It has nothing to do with people here, I'm not labeling anyone here the same, and if for example, a Belgian started supporting Chelsea because of Hazard, it doesn't make said person a lesser fan if they continue to support Chelsea when Hazard leaves... it doesn't mean that Hazard doesn't drag fans globally (not only Belgians) and that those people don't spend money on Chelsea (some of them - but not a significant percentage) spend money on Chelsea. And spending money is what defines a club's marketability that some were questioning here. Marketing is all about money spent - directly or indirectly. A customer that buys a Samsung device because of Chelsea (on a conscious or unconscious level) is cooperating with the club's marketability as well as the one that buys a shirt because Samsung is experiencing a raise in their sales because of a contract they have with Chelsea.

I was against signing Shaw for that ridiculous amount of money and I'd be against buying Sterling, for example, for the price he might cost in a couple of years. My main point here is more conceptual rather than - ironically enough - occasional. I'm not saying we should go there now and spend unnecessary money on English players, but we should keep in mind at all times to keep a core. We should keep and give our English talents more time and invest on them as I hope we do about those names you mention. That's what I'm advocating here. Having a Cahill doesn't compromise us as a team - even if I don't trust him that much - because he works well with JT. Keeping Daniel wouldn't have compromised us. If we work well with Ake, Bamford, Baker and another couple of names from our academy - even if they don't end up being the very best in their position - they could make a job for us. The reason why we don't have English players currently is because we overlooked it a few years ago. I'm against breaking the bank to bring an English player, but we should keep in mind to have them in our ranks as one of our priorities.

I also agree we shouldn't keep mediocre players, but I also believe people in general label English players crap without looking at them properly because of their ridiculous NT (sorry, mates...). There are a lot of names in this generation of English players that I like and that I think could make a job for any balanced team in the world (the key word being balanced - and sometimes to give balance you need some key foreign players).

My main problem here is people disregarding the importance an English core has to an English team, or a Spanish core to a Spanish team, etc... It IS important for marketability, it is important in the local context and as much as we - foreign fans - make Chelsea a bigger club, what makes difference is still the guys that go to Stamford Bridge and support the team, and give them strength playing away - in England or Europe. There's no denial local support is essential for a team... I'm not saying they're better than us, I'm saying they play an instrumental role for a team's success that we can't for geographic reasons... We can buy shirts - and we do; we can pay the cable companies to watch EPL games and we do (and that helps to elevate the TV quota the clubs receive), buy Adidas and Samsung products among other things, but unfortunately we aren't the people in the stadiums week in and out and we all know local support is important for a team...

And that support could suffer if we start losing our identity as an English team. We've survived for 100+ years without winning a lot because the local fans were passionate, saved our stadium, contributed in many ways. We wouldn't have survived without them and no matter how much money is injected, how many stars and silverware we can win, a club will always need the local supporter to survive. So let's suppose having an English core isn't important for fans around the world (to which I disagree, it may not be important for some, but many will want to see Chelsea as a traditional English team), it is still important for the local support and therefore is important for the club as an institution.

And I really, really, really disagree about your last sentence. It isn't Mourinho, much less Roman, that gives Chelsea an identity. Both will pass, the club won't. I have a lot of problems with a statement like that, but that's only me, I'm not saying it as a fact.