Yeah, the reason why England are rubbish is all down to the foreigners. Definitely.

I mean, when there were hardly any foreigners landed on our shores, England were world beaters. Right? They won pretty much every World Cup and European Championship they competed in. Right?

Yeah, it's not like they failed to qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups, not to mention the 1984 European Championships, nor the 1994 World Cup when there were barely any foreigners playing in England (apart from a bunged-up Norwegian or two).

'It has everything to do with what is happening at the grass roots of the game'


Yeah, English football has really gone downhill since those heady days. Yeah, if it wasn't for all those pesky foreigners, we would have the World Cup of 2010 already in the bag, right?

Er, actually, no.

It's got nothing to do with the number of foreigners playing in English football. It has everything to do with what is happening at the grass roots of the game, the way youngsters are coached when they are seven, 10, 12 and 15.

If you got rid of the foreigners, you would have a lot more English players playing in the Premier League, for sure. But if all of these players were mediocre - as they were before all the foreigners came - how would that exactly help anyone? Could we ever find a goalkeeper to match Petr Cech at Chelsea?

All that would happen is that, as the standard of English football dropped, fewer people would go to matches. Remember, England are useless at other sports were there are hardly any foreigners playing, as well.

Never mind getting rid of the foreigners; perhaps we need to get rid of all the English players and give all the foreigners a British passport.

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