What England need to improve on is the pathway. A disconcerting statistic of last season:
Playing time for domestic U22 players in 2016-17: Ligue 1 -79,062 minutes, La Liga- 37,992 minutes, Bundesliga - 36,001 minutes, Serie A - 21,865 minutes Premier League - 16,532 minutes.
England could use with more managers like Pochettino in the EPL, and hopefully Koeman. Once everyone had played a maximum of one game in the Premier League this season, it was Everton and Spurs who not just played, but started a member of the England U20s which won the U20 World Cup as I said earlier.
Everton bought young players from lower leagues such as Dennis Adeniran, and Lewis Gibson who will be exposed to a higher level of football. Additionally, they've made the acquisitions of Keane and Pickford who are not only young for their respective positions, but players that will also be mainstays and add to Everton's English core of Calvert-Lewin, Dowell, Tom Davies, Holgate, Lookman amongst others. Furthermore, signings such as Klaassen who was the captain of a very, very young Ajax side, and Rooney as England's all time top goal scorer were bought for their influence on the youngsters. Also, now these young players have been given the chance to play in Europe, which will be invaluable in the long term, despite their current woes.
Koeman-“As a coach, I see if a new signing can hinder the development of a new talent. We can go and sign again, but in six months a talent might just be ready," he wrote in his column in De Telegraaf. Then you want to give him perspective. I think it’s nice to see the young players from their own training centres in England knock on the door. I want to give them confidence. In England, they generally hesitate, and don’t play young players too early. But as a Dutchman, I just don’t hesitate to give them a chance.The Premier League has made many foreign purchases and sometimes that’s inevitable, but I get to see the appreciation of everything just by walking in the training ground," he said.I admire the attitude, the mentality and behaviour of the young English footballers. They go like the fire, you don’t need to do anything to their motivation and I have to slow them down rather than push ahead. They possess a certain character that you don’t see in the Netherlands or in other countries. It’s a different culture.”
Conversely, Spurs have Pochettino. A manager who generally prefers players to stay at the Spurs camp, rather than going out on loan, as he wants players to be molded into the way he wants, rather than the influence of others. For this reason, Winks stayed at Spurs, and Onomah despite interest for his services last season, were rejected. Although, he is on loan now. Spurs had an English core of Rose, Walker, Alli and Kane, with Onomah, Trippier and Winks as peripheral figures for most of the season. Now Walker is gone, but Trippier and Winks have been given a more prominent role, Kyle Walker Peters is now in the mix. And it won't be too long before we see Marcus Edwards getting game time.
Pochettino - “And then, I think because the big sides are investing a lot of money in trying to improve their squads, but for us we are so calm and so quiet because we have belief in our youth from our academy. We may lack a few players, but we are so calm because I think we have a very good team and the most important thing for us always is the team. Always the philosophy is coming from the board and in the case of (chairman) Daniel Levy, I think we have a very good relationship, we have a clear idea of what we need to do in the future.But it is true we have a different philosophy, it is not because we cannot invest, but Tottenham have built a different philosophy than the other big clubs.
With that being said, England can't rely on the Premier League alone, as a pathway for players. Leading up to the 2014/15 season Tom Ince, an England U21 player turned down Monaco and Inter Milan to sign for Hull, with his reasoning being he felt the league itself and the question 'would I get lost over there?' especially being English, put me off a little." However, there's been progress in this regard with a number of English players whether on loan (M. Willock to Utrecht, Reece Oxford to Gladbach, or leaving permanently, as we've seen with Sancho joining Dortmund, Kaylen Hinds leaving Arsenal to join Wolfsburg, or or Dobson to Sparta Rotterdam from West Ham.
There's also the Championship. More games( 46>BPL's 38) + more willing to accept players on loan. Ryan Sessegnon became a starter for Fulham before he reached the age of 17, and barring unfortunate mitigating factors/extenuating circumstances, he'll get an exorbitant amount of game time. If he moved to a PL side, its possible he'll be playing at reserve level now, or consigned to the bench to only play in the cup competitions. Swansea's Abraham is an example of a player who thrived in the Championship which won him a loan spell from Chelsea to PL side Swansea as a starter. You've also got Nottingham Forest who have a core of English players, Dowell who was Everton's best player in preseason, Zac Clough, Ben Osborn, Jordan Smith, and Joe Worall.
