Buy British- Still Important?

[SpunkyBackpack]

Righty ho...

Seems like all this waiting for the end of the seasony has sent everyone into a bickering and nonsensical arguing frenzy so im dusting off my thread making hat and attempting to distract everyone with a thread where no players can be verbally bitchslapped

Reading all the papers lately its been full of names like Modric/Capel/Ronaldinho etc and its making me feel a bit worried that we could end up flogging all the Brits and bring in a bunch of (possibly better) foreigners. Ive always felt a warm smugness over the past few years when ive seen our Brits commended and compared to the legion at l'arse,

Levy seemsthat he wants to keep buying local produce as and when we can but how far will/can we go down that road without compromising our squad? Do you care?

Id personally feel a bit sad if we lost our 'spine' because i think it shows a bit of responsibility and foward thinking on our part which gets us respect that them lot down the road just dont get, if it means we lose points or even trophies becuase we followed a different blueprint im not sure it would bother me as much as the alternative.




ps. If this turns into a 'Gattuso is better than Jake Livermore,'/'Robbo has tiny hands' ranty player-hate romp or a Dailly Mail style 'hetooookmyjooooob' country-bash ill cry all morning.

 

[C0YS]

I agree with you here. Having an british spine we are in keeping with are nations natonality and helping the PL stay english, we are setting example to everyone else that if we do well you can succssed with an english spine. I think we are doing the FA a huge favour and we should be gratfull to Levy (even though Im not his biggest fan) for putting this in place. And I hope the trend continues

P.S.Gattuso is better than Jake Livermore:wink:

 

[haxman]

It all boils down to money again. British players are overpriced, there's talk of Gareth Barry for £12m and David Bentley for £15m, wtf? I can't understand how or why it got like this, maybe clubs are paying over the odds because they're established Premiership players who have already adjusted to the speed of the league where a foreign player may or may not be able to. Foreign players tend to be technically better than British players, but less willing to graft and track back (there are exceptions of course) but as I said before, money talks.

Me, I'd rather have a skillful foreigner in the Spurs side who would improve us and help push us to a new level rather than an overpriced average player just earning a pay cheque every week.

 

[guy]

I dont think we're in danger of losing our british(& irish) spine. We will have woody, king, jenas, lennon, hudd, keano, hutton, bale for many years to come im sure. And out of them at least 6 or 7 are starting xi.

We should only buy british if they are good enough and reasonably priced. Right now id say crouch is the only one i can think of.

 

[C0YS]

I dont think we're in danger of losing our british(& irish) spine. We will have woody, king, jenas, lennon, hudd, keano, hutton, bale for many years to come im sure. And out of them at least 6 or 7 are starting xi.

We should only buy british if they are good enough and reasonably priced. Right now id say crouch is the only one i can think of.

Please not Crouch, theres a good reason why we sold him.....not saing anything spunkybackpack

 

[davros]

It's a tough one to balance. Ideally I'd like to see a consistent stream of talented youngsters coming through our youth system and developing into the 'backbone' of our first team. A sprinkling of foreign talent to complete the squad and add what, for us, can only be bought. Sadly it doesn't seem to be working that way.
If buying in foreign players gets us the squad that Ramos needs in order to achieve is short-mid term needs then I'm all for it. We still have plenty of British players (plus Keano), and I'm sure some will survive the expected summer clearout.

 

[Kendall]

Yes, the two best teams in the Prem have a core of British players.

 

[Flatters]

Our back four is completely British. That's all we need, innit?

 

[Kendall]

maybe if the ever get to play together!

 

[jondesouza]

It depends. We've had in the last few years two streams of recruitment - players for now and players for the future (although we've bought fewer of the latter recently). I'm quite happy for us to buy world class players from abroad that will markedly improve the team now (for instance, the only English defensive midfielders of an acceptable quality wouldn't come or would be far too expensive).

I'd also like to see us continue the policy of buying the best young talent from within this country to come through over time (as we have with Lennon, Hudd, Daws etc). In the summer perhaps we should be looking at players like Ramsey (yes, I know he's Welsh), Scannell, Shawcross or Mattock.

What I'd rather we didn't do was buy mediocre foreign players that are only as good as an average Prem player. In cases such as those I'd rather see us shell out a bit extra for a player ofo no extra quality but with Premiership experience.

 

[ackie]

British players are overated and overpriced! They are not THAT good either!!
If we were THAT good, surely England would have won a major trophy, but not in Europe nor doing well in world cup and need an Italian manager for England job.
There are some excellent world class players but most are overated and overpriced.
London is the most cosmopolitan place in Europe, so what the heck, let Spurs become cosmopolitan and win some trophies.

 

[Kendall]

I think the England setup is as much to blame as the players. They are seriousy good. Are you suggesting that Rooney, Carrick, Lampard, Gerrard, J Cole & Hargreaves in particular are not world class?

It's funny that Arsenal and Liverpool are playing next to no English players these days and they are off the pace with the top 2, I still believe you need a good mix.

 

[ackie]

I think the England setup is as much to blame as the players. They are seriousy good. Are you suggesting that Rooney, Carrick, Lampard, Gerrard, J Cole & Hargreaves in particular are not world class?

It's funny that Arsenal and Liverpool are playing next to no English players these days and they are off the pace with the top 2, I still believe you need a good mix.

As stated above, i said there are some world class british players!
Agree - A good mix = cosmopolitan squad!!!

 

[onthetwo]

Righty ho...

Seems like all this waiting for the end of the seasony has sent everyone into a bickering and nonsensical arguing frenzy so im dusting off my thread making hat and attempting to distract everyone with a thread where no players can be verbally bitchslapped

Reading all the papers lately its been full of names like Modric/Capel/Ronaldinho etc and its making me feel a bit worried that we could end up flogging all the Brits and bring in a bunch of (possibly better) foreigners. Ive always felt a warm smugness over the past few years when ive seen our Brits commended and compared to the legion at l'arse,

Levy seemsthat he wants to keep buying local produce as and when we can but how far will/can we go down that road without compromising our squad? Do you care?

Id personally feel a bit sad if we lost our 'spine' because i think it shows a bit of responsibility and foward thinking on our part which gets us respect that them lot down the road just dont get, if it means we lose points or even trophies becuase we followed a different blueprint im not sure it would bother me as much as the alternative.




ps. If this turns into a 'Gattuso is better than Jake Livermore,'/'Robbo has tiny hands' ranty player-hate romp or a Dailly Mail style 'hetooookmyjooooob' country-bash ill cry all morning.

Robbos hands are like planets which makes his inability to catch a cross all the more baffling.

 

[DC_Boy]

Well so far under JR we've bought an Englishman Scotsman Welshman and Brazilian - so that's a big thumbs up for Britain - and the one who's performed worst is the Brazilian and the two exceptional performers have been the English & Scottish players

Remember a lot of talk about the foreign players is absolute nonsense

One of the funniest recently is so many people on various sites have said let Berbs go and get in Villa - I've been saying it's all nonsense for at least a month now, ever since this particular piece of hilarity started popping up regularly on various boards

I don't even follow continental football - but even i know that not only is Villa too big a name for us at the mo - he's not even a Berbs type player - and so wouldn't even be a replacement and would still leave us needing another striker on top of him

Most of the time though I haven't a clue about the continental players but that lack of knowlege is far less dangerous (to rephrase Alexander Pope) than those of a little knowledge, both media and fans alike who come out with ' we can get Xio for so much, Spurs in for Yski' blah blah crap blah

Like do any of these peple know X or Y's family and their views on moving anywhere- do they know the state of their contracts - do they know what they think of playing in England, living in England, living in the south East etc etc - of course they don't to any degree of detail, in the vast majority of cases (there is of course occasionally, very occasionally a bit of genuine ITK)

They're just ciphers, imaginary players in the shadow world of you tube fantasy football, media gossip

It reminds of when I used to spend a lot of time in betting shops and it was quite clear that most of the people in there (including me) didn't know one end of a horse from another - didn't have the faintest clue about what the horse's actual physical condition was on a particular day, whether the track that day suited them, let alone whether the owner/trainer was holding that horse back or not

they were just names on the sporting life list, images seen on TV, and guess what, most of us lost money over the years of betting regularly - what a surprise

 

[stemark44]

No more british players for me thanks ,we already have more than enough!They lack composure and football intelligence,they also tend to reach a certain level and never improve on it.They don't seem to learn from experience and they don't seem to learn learn from coaching!

 

[stickyfinger]

Ive always felt a warm smugness over the past few years when ive seen our Brits commended and compared to the legion at l'arse,

me too, but personally I'd be much smugger at beating them more often

Levy seemsthat he wants to keep buying local produce as and when we can but how far will/can we go down that road without compromising our squad? Do you care?

Or is it just coincidence? I'm not really aware of any statements that said it was ever so, but there's a lot I'm not aware of :shrug:.

Then we acquired a clutch of players from France.

If there was a policy, wasn't it British and young, rather than just British? Some insightful chappies bemoaned the lack of experienced talent being brought in, instead we have youngsters. British youngsters. Was under the impression this strongly contributed to the financial health of our club and therefore, one might imagine, won't be abandoned.

We seem to be looking at non-British experienced players, the other thread of our buying policy if you will. The famously neglected one. Winners, now. From anywhere. Yes please.

Id personally feel a bit sad if we lost our 'spine' because i think it shows a bit of responsibility and foward thinking on our part which gets us respect that them lot down the road just dont get, if it means we lose points or even trophies becuase we followed a different blueprint im not sure it would bother me as much as the alternative.

Well, a matter of taste then, and not something that bothers me really. Not as much as getting whipped by crap teams anyway.

ps. If this turns into a 'Gattuso is better than Jake Livermore,'/'Robbo has tiny hands' ranty player-hate romp or a Dailly Mail style 'hetooookmyjooooob' country-bash ill cry all morning.

 

[nickspurs]

I'm in favour of a British spine with a complement of foreign players where necessary. On the British players:

Pro's for Spurs
- Likely to have grown up with the premiership style of play
- Communication and comradery amongst the team
- Having the England manager at Spurs all the time gives us a good selling point to bring in future English players plus it's alnmost self-fulfilling if he's always there
- Less clubs able to tempt them away (i.e. if I'm British and play in the best league in the world already I'd probably only leave Spurs if one of the Top 4 came in for me)

Cons for Spurs
- Fewer skillful players to choose from
- Prices have become inflated in recent years

So overall I have a bias to British but I think the price issue has made it more of a preference than a policy.

 

[Michey]

British players are overated and overpriced! They are not THAT good either!!
If we were THAT good, surely England would have won a major trophy, but not in Europe nor doing well in world cup and need an Italian manager for England job.
There are some excellent world class players but most are overated and overpriced.
London is the most cosmopolitan place in Europe, so what the heck, let Spurs become cosmopolitan and win some trophies.

Have som rep :clap:

 

[nickspurs]

I also reckon the management are now less inclined to buy British at all costs now. Downing was a case in point. I believe he was keen, we were keen but we just pulled out because we wouldn't meet Boro's joke valuation. Two seasons earlier if we'd got to that stage we'd probably have paid up.