England's lack of success can be put down to a number of key factors:
- Lack of opportunities for youngsters - PL managers simply won't give youngsters the opportunities they need when they can turn to experienced, proven, players. There are some exceptions (most notably Southampton), but for the likes of Chelsea and Man City, why perservere with a raw 19-year-old when you can buy a ready made £30m superstar to fill that berth? It's a shame that the game is like it, but I can't see that changing.
- English players being overpriced - Some of the asking prices for English players are criminal. As good a player as someone like Adam Lallana is, if he was foreign and playing abroad he'd be worth £10m max, not the £30m that Southampton are asking. The issue with this ridiculous inflation of English players is not only does it put the big clubs off from buying them, but it also hurts the careers of those players who are then denied the chance to play at a level worthy of their talents and impedes their development.
- Reluctance of English players to go abroad - English players are on the whole, weak, lazy and too protected to test themselves by going abroad and into a new culture, despite the overwhelming evidence that suggests that doing so can do wonders in helping players to improve, and of those that do, most don't have the bottle for it and come back within a year. The fact that at least two English players (sorry, idiots) have turned down moves to Ajax and the chance to work under de Boer and Bergkamp in favour of playing in the Championship underlines that fact. What I don't get is, if given the choice of spending my career at a mid-table PL club, or a chance to play at a top side in France, Holland, Portugal etc. and win things, I'd go abroad any day of the week, so why won't English players do that? Baffling.
- Lack of opportunities for English managers - This is perhaps the most criminal of the lot, as there are a lot of genuinely talented English managers doing great jobs in the Championship, but seemingly the only way any of these guys can get a chance in the PL is by getting their team promoted. It tells you all you need to know when West Brom would rather give Pepe Mel a job than someone like Sherwood, and the likes of McClaren, Adkins, McDermott, Howe are either stuck at Championship clubs or out of work. This is an area that needs urgent attention, particularly now that the likes of Charlton, Brighton and Watford at Championship level deliberately appear to be bypassing British coaches to suit whatever agendas they have.
Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter what systems are in place. No-one country has ever, or probably will ever, enjoy the luxury of having the best football team in the world for an extended period of time. Sport runs in cycles, and sometimes someone will end up with a generation of better players than us. I'm not saying that there aren't significant areas of improvement needed, but that there isn't a set formula for winning the World Cup, otherwise we'd have cracked it already.