English Shame

England played worrying football in the first 3 group matches. Then they got destroyed by a bad refereeing decision and a quick and smart young Germans team.

Rooney was missing throughout the tournament. The Manchester United Ace was anonymous yet it seems that England has nobody else to replace him? Has Mr. Capello forgotten about Crouch? He should had been given some minutes in the games, he could probably contributed.

England just don't have too many new talents to match the Germans. The future looks bad.

Capello had only 44 per cent of players in the Premier League to choose from.

A coach can only work with the tools available to him.

Capello never had those tools, in Sunday's 4-1 defeat by Germany or before.

Germany's team contained four players from their side which beat us 4-0 in the Euro Under-21s final 12 months ago.

We had one - James Milner. Where are our rising young stars, who will form the spine of the England team for years to come?

A few months ago when Germany coach Joachim Low was thinking of throwing the likes of Mesut Ozil and Jerome Boateng into World Cup duty, Capello was trying to persuade Jamie Carragher and Paul Scholes out of retirement.

That is nothing against those two warhorses who have always served their country with distinction. And it is nothing against Capello - what other choices did he have?

No, it is a sad indictment on the lack of English players coming through and for that you have to look at the clubs and the way our game is run.

England have just been crowned Under-17 champions of Europe. How many of those will be in the full squad in a few years? None probably. Maybe one or two at best.

But once these starlets get on the pro circuit, it seems clubs would rather buy average foreigners instead of investing in home-grown talent. It may have made the Premier League the best division in the world, but it has turned England into one of the poorest national sides.

I'm not moaning about the influx of quality overseas stars. Players like Gianfranco Zola, Jurgen Klinsmann, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, Emmanuel Petit et al, who have all improved our game.

But there are a number of foreign stars who manage to earn themselves contracts, even though in reality they are no better than the English-born players denied a chance.

That is because their club is either swayed by the glamour of an exotic-sounding signing or his willingness to do a job for far less money than the home-grown rookie IS demanding.

The lack of English players is not all down to managers. Chairmen and owners must carry some of the responsibility too.

Managers are given little time to nurture home-grown talent. At many clubs, youth policies are not high on the list of priorities. And maybe you can understand why.

I mean if Arsenal are not providing one player for Capello's 23, and often no Englishmen at all in their Premier League matches, why should other clubs bother?

Competing in the Champions League is all that matters to top clubs. That is why they prefer expensive foreigners to cultivating local young stars.

And the ironic thing is that, despite this, the Germans - or rather Bayern Munich - still did better than Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool in last season's competition.

Germany taught us a lesson on the pitch but we also need to learn from them off it. It was not so long ago the Bundesliga was reportedly dying on its backside, unable to pay the high wages and attract big names.