France (H) match discussion thread

[Stuttgart88]

The manager is indeed limited by the players available to him. This could get worse if many of our young players are forced to settle for sitting on the bench or playing in the Championship or League One. I have long wished that more of our players would try playing on the continent, but somehow I can't see them having enough imagination to try it out. If say, instead of playing in the Championship, they were playing in Holland or Belgium or Portugual, they might actually have a chance of playing in the Champions League or UEFA cup. I feel they could learn a lot more about football by doing that, but maybe the money is not as good. Also, you'd have to learn a foreign language, which many English speakers refuse to do.

This was on the BBC's rumour page this morning (source is the Daily Record, not usually renowned for its objectivity / accuracy):

Belgian side Anderlecht are watching Hibs trio Garry O'Connor, Derek Riordan and Steven Whittaker as well as Hearts duo Rudi Skacel and Roman Bednar.

It's probably b0ll0x, but if only we could see similar stories being run about some Irish lads. Miller practically single-handedly beat Anderlecht 2 years ago. Surely they remember him.

I tried to look at Steven Reid yesterday but just couldn't bring myself to watch the whole game. It was unwatchable. It was a battle of attrition with neither side encouraged to play any football. At times the Championship is little better. The current state of English football (over-rated imports crowding out "local" talent, Chelsea's dominance meaning the chasing pack have little opportunity to take a chance on youth, fear of relegation making mid to low-ranking sides stifling each other by both playing 4-5-1...) is not helping us.

Obviously nobody owes us any favours but somebody with some vision should look at opportunities to get our fringe players involved in a higher standard of football than they're exposed to at the moment.

[tetsujin1979]

From the "highlights" on Match Of The Day 2, it seemed Reid had a decent game, great shot after a run into the box late on well saved by Jussi (always thought he was a top keeper)

[thejollyrodger]

yeah, i thought S.Reid did alright too. He gets in some decent crosses. War of attrition alright. The EPL has changed so much in the last 5-10 years, so many non nationals in the league now