But are they breaking through to regular first team football? Prem clubs usually go for the ‘off the shelf’ ready made early 20s or even older player from abroad rather than give their own youth a chance. Annoying about Matonda going to Man City, then ending up at Schalke, if he’s at that Bundesliga standard he’d have certainly got a lot of game time had he stayed with us. Sancho, an England international, over in Germany as well. Who’s the Chelsea player who fairly recently made his England debut before his first team debut. Unthinkable in the not too distant past, a player actually playing for England yet hadn’t started for his club!!!! England u/17 & u/19 have done marvellous at tournaments and, as you say, this is no doubt due to working day in, day out at their clubs with the creme de la creme but there must be 40 odd players involved, how many will get a sniff of a first team opportunity? It’s a Catch 22 situation, it’ll be sad to see a lot of young UK talent hit a brick wall at 20/21, it’ll be interesting in, say, 10 years time to read a ‘Where are they now’ article about the squads of these recent English tournament winners. Let’s hope the majority of them can break through.Originally Posted by The Lone Gunman
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