Would England be more successful if more of their players played for the same clubs?

Some people have suggested this, but if we consider some of the most successful national teams in the world right now like Germany (Bayern Munich), Spain (Barca and Real Madrid) and Italy (Juventus and Milan), many of them have a lot of players from the same teams. As a result, they appear to have good chemistry and play the same brand of football on the international stage. England, by contrast, have players from various different clubs that in many cases play completely different styles, and look disjointed often times when they have the ball. Pretend we use the XI England used at the Euro as an example (with the club being shown instead of the player name):

----------------Man City-----------------
Liverpool----Chelsea----Man City----Chelsea
Man City----Liverpool----Spurs----Man Utd
--------Man Utd------Man Utd----------

With the exception of Rooney and Welbeck, and Hart and Lescott, there are no positions where club teammates play side by side. Now, say for example England were to decide to do the unthinkable and leave out players like Gerrard and Parker, convince Scholes and Carrick to play, and went for a midfield that lined up using mostly Man Utd players (just as an example):

Walcott (or whoever is most like Nani/Valencia)----Scholes/Cleverley----Carrick----Young

Ferdinand, Jones, and Smalling could all be considered in defence as well if fit and available, although tbh I don't think the defence was the main problem at the Euro. Anyway, do you think they would be more successful because so many players are from Man Utd (or another team) and play regularly together? Or should England continue to play the players that on paper look like they must be included?

England don't really have a 'brand of football' imo. At the end of the day I think it's about playing the best players. It shouldn't really matter what club they're from.

mtfootball wrote:England don't really have a 'brand of football' imo. At the end of the day I think it's about playing the best players. It shouldn't really matter what club they're from.

True, but that's why I think this idea could be worth trying out. We see Man Utd face world powers on a regular basis and do well with many English players in their team, players that don't all even make it into the national team and on paper may even be weaker than some of the guys who do, so team chemistry might account for more than we give it credit for.

Germany once upon a time had they NT spread around many clubs, even relegation fodder. Italy had the same setup, considering Juventus was in their rebuilding phase.

I don't think it matters that much. I'm thinking it's better to have your players all play in the same league, under similar footballing philosophies. If you apply your club tactics to your NT, you're going to have an easier time adapting. If you see your NT buddies week in and out in the league, you have a realtime view on their skills and weaknesses.

Of course, with clubs in England being so tactically mediocre lately, you don't have much of a choice in what style of football you're going to play. I'd say it's all down to how average most English sides are technically. Also, overinflated egos that I'm putting down as the media's fault.

It's an interesting question, not least because when you look at the flops of the tournament you get such nations as Holland and France. Their players are very good, but come from many different clubs. And both Holland and France really struggled to find a common note to their play.

But obviously this is one of those matters that are very difficult to measure, so it's hard to say would it really make a noticeable difference. It certainly can do no harm to have a number of your NT players playing for the same few clubs.

Eman wrote:Some people have suggested this, but if we consider some of the most successful national teams in the world right now like Germany (Bayern Munich), Spain (Barca and Real Madrid) and Italy (Juventus and Milan), many of them have a lot of players from the same teams. As a result, they appear to have good chemistry and play the same brand of football on the international stage. England, by contrast, have players from various different clubs that in many cases play completely different styles, and look disjointed often times when they have the ball. Pretend we use the XI England used at the Euro as an example (with the club being shown instead of the player name):

----------------Man City-----------------
Liverpool----Chelsea----Man City----Chelsea
Man City----Liverpool----Spurs----Man Utd
--------Man Utd------Man Utd----------

With the exception of Rooney and Welbeck, and Hart and Lescott, there are no positions where club teammates play side by side. Now, say for example England were to decide to do the unthinkable and leave out players like Gerrard and Parker, convince Scholes and Carrick to play, and went for a midfield that lined up using mostly Man Utd players (just as an example):

Walcott (or whoever is most like Nani/Valencia)----Scholes/Cleverley----Carrick----Young

Ferdinand, Jones, and Smalling could all be considered in defence as well if fit and available, although tbh I don't think the defence was the main problem at the Euro. Anyway, do you think they would be more successful because so many players are from Man Utd (or another team) and play regularly together? Or should England continue to play the players that on paper look like they must be included?

Eman for England's coach.

Seriously, I think it makes a lot of sense and it would really be a bettetr england if they called up the bulk of Man U english players and played a ManUs style. The problem is that they would miss the same piece that ManU: an AM.

Hart
Smalling Ferdinand Terry Cole
-------Carrick Cleverly
--Walcott-----Rooney/???----Young
--------------????/Rooney

So Carrick would be chosen ahead of Wilshere for example?

mtfootball wrote:So Carrick would be chosen ahead of Wilshere for example?

Well obviously a few players would fit in from other clubs, but using this strategy yeah Carrick would probably be playing ahead of someone who regularly would not be left out. It might seem like the wrong thing to do, but I've been thinking about this strategy more and more since so many people have been criticizing English talent recently, despite there being clubs with a lot of Englishmen (like Man Utd) that succeed on a regular basis, unlike the national team. Chemistry and playing style, IMO, are major problems for the English NT atm.

I'm also not quite saying 'we should play more Man Utd players,' but just using them as an example. The ideal situation (for the sake of this experiment) would be to have all of the best English players at one club with a set playing philosophy for a couple of seasons and see how things go.

I doubt Terry/Ferdinand will happen, more likley to be Cahill/Terry which still works for clubs.

For Italy/Spain, I think it's more of a coincidence their starters/best playesr play for the same club.

Lol what English style of football? Kick and run?

juveman17 wrote:Lol what English style of football? Kick and run?

The top English sides don't usually use those tactics, except when they have to or it makes sense to. For example, Chelsea don't park the bus against Wigan, and a midfield with so many Man Utd players would attempt far more short passes. It's true that some teams do nothing but hoof the ball, but Stoke players don't usually get call-ups

Eman wrote:

juveman17 wrote:Lol what English style of football? Kick and run?

The top English sides don't usually use those tactics, except when they have to or it makes sense to. For example, Chelsea don't park the bus against Wigan, and a midfield with so many Man Utd players would attempt far more short passes. It's true that some teams do nothing but hoof the ball, but Stoke players don't usually get call-ups

True and England would be better if their top sides all had 6 players each from England. This would add quality to the NT team.

Yeh but the top EPL sides have foreign players who help play more technical football.

mtfootball wrote:Yeh but the top EPL sides have foreign players who help play more technical football.

Ik but it always harms the national side. That is why England won't win anything with the current quality of players.

juveman17 wrote:

mtfootball wrote:Yeh but the top EPL sides have foreign players who help play more technical football.

Ik but it always harms the national side. That is why England won't win anything with the current quality of players.

Well I think England just need to change the style of football. Wilshere was injured, so he'll hopefully be in the next squad. There's also Cleverley from Man Utd, who's a good passer. AOX is a technically good young AM/Winger too. Cahill and Terry can play together. And Rooney should be the lone CF.

Of course, it's the trick with all the NT's. Because time that they play together is so small. If core of your NT plays in the same club, it's easier to play as a team, and because NT-football it worse quality wise than top club football, teams that have core of top club teams in their NT, will dominate easily. Hence we have a final Barca (Madrid) - Juventus.

I can already see Mourninho to get more Portoguese players to Madrid, just to enhance their NT-team.

You might see a small improvement, but at the end of the day its about having good players and a good manager, if you have both of those pieces you're fine. Of course, if you then had the majority of them playing together every week it would benefit teammwork, but it is more important to just find some better talented players. The best team of all time (brazil world cup winners of 1970) played 5 creative players from 5 different clubs, all of them wore the n10 shirt for their club, it didnt hurt their chemistry much. Atm england dont have enough good players, and they sacked fabio capello for roy hodgson

btw if you started leaving out big players for anyone that plays for a certain club team morale would be utterly destroyed. It only works if all your best players play for the same club

Physical or Hoofball is a brand of Football.

Top clubs in the EPL don't really play hoofball.