Jude Bellingham

Nero said:
Not sure that thinking is correct.

In that latter days of Division 1 and the early days of the PL there weren't many non British or Irish players in England's top league. The National team had good players but were awful mainly at international tournaments except 90 and 96. More playing time for English players didn't equate to a better national team.
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I think the game has got a lot more technical since then, as a whole anyway.

The prem started in ~91, you can't discount 90 and 96, as they accounted for around half the tournaments of that time. We won neither though, didn't even get to finals. Then if you go outside that we got knocked out of W/C 86 by the winners, but equally lost every game at Euro 88, we were all over the place around that time it seems. It takes time for the prem model and foreigner rules to change things though.

Around that time was a poor time for quality youth coming through though, but I think that was more because football was a bit old school, and clubs were picking the big old hard lads as we thought about football the wrong way. We had the likes of Vinny Jones running around just booting people etc, most teams had one or two players who wouldn't stay on the pitch for 10 minutes these days. It got much better when Man Utd had an influx of kids, and egged other teams on, but England didn't make the most of that, largely through bad team management, player management and inter-club player disputes. It was the same in amateur football, the small technical lads didn't get picked or got kicked off the park.

We were our own worst enemy for a long time, as far as England goes, It's different now though, the rivalries are less severe as there are less local lads in any of the sides, and the foreign players won't care about derbies and rivalries etc, although they might pretend they do. Southgate helped with things like this, getting the players more cohesively. We had a period of getting nothing out of a good team, and now we're playing at a better level than the quality of our experienced players. The young lads coming through will change this though, the future's brighter as the young lads have been going abroad to get game time and some have picked less fashionable clubs to start their pro careers.

Since say 1995 onwards the influx of foreigners has made our top league far more technical, and we have had the technical young lads coming through trying to emulate these foreign players but it takes 10 years to get a 10-year-old to 20-year-old etc. You can't just change to being a technical player at 20, it's baked in long before then.

If we reduced foreigner numbers now, the game would not revert back to the rough 80's and early 90's game, as that game is dead, young players are not taught to play like that, and the rules have moved on so much that it can no longer exist with the standardised game laws.
 
Nero said:
Absolutely. Real Madrid do not sign players unless their potential is huge, or they are already the best in their position. Bellingham made the best choice going there too. The biggest club in world football.
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Bellingham's potential is huge, nobody in their right mind would deny that, and it's good he's gone there as they need long-term replacements for Kroos and Modric, and they're building up a team of young talent, rather than buying galactico's etc. Should be a great team for his development, and it's good that he's getting young experience in different leagues. He could end up the best in his position (whether that's box to box or as a no 10 etc) in a very short space of time.

Hopefully he does a few years over there and then comes over to the top club in England, whoever that is then.
 
His ability is one thing, but his mentality is something else.

He's gone to Real Madrid and made himself the main man in 3 games. There was that stuff in Dortmund about him having a 'bad attitude', but it was mostly him digging out players after they'd lost and Dortmund players being v small time.
 
I said about 6 months ago that Liverpool should have spent £200m + to sign Rice and Bellingham.

That was without their older boys being bought/moved on now.

He’ll only become better learning from Modric
 
For a young lad to move to Real Madrid and start the way he has is brilliant. He could end up being a huge success there and probably more accepted than Gareth Bale.
 
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