England In Crisis – Should Chelsea Play English Players To Benefit The National Team?

With yet another dismal display from England at the 2014 World Cup (one that saw them knocked out in the group stages for the first time since 1958 and still with a game to spare), there has been criticism regarding the fact that there are not many English players playing regularly in the country’s top flight. Many pundits have suggested that this is the cause for England’s lacklustre performances in recent tournaments. With that being said, should clubs like Chelsea bow down to the demands of the nation to help England?

Out of the top teams last season, Chelsea were probably second only to Liverpool for fielding English players regularly, with the likes of John Terry, Gary Cahill, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole playing a decent number of games throughout the campaign. Even though this was the case, only Gary Cahill has played in both of England’s games so far; Lampard has not played but has been in the squad whilst Terry and Cole were not selected.

With four years to prepare for the next World Cup in Russia, should Chelsea be using some of their young English players like Josh McEachran, Nathaniel Chalobah and Patrick Bamford regularly? Obviously Jose Mourinho doesn’t feel that they are good enough to be playing top flight football and, like many others in that position, they will possibly be released or keep being loaned out to lower league clubs. Football is a results business and Mourinho needs to make sure that he wins matches to stay in the job. This means that he will be going after the best worldwide talents rather than English ones.

In my opinion, there should be a rule where there has to be at least a few English players playing regular top flight football for each team. However, with there being many foreign managers and owners at the clubs it is the case that they don’t particularly care what happens to the national team, and without rules they simply will not select the young English players.