No bugger's going to read this but

I'm going to say it anyway.

The England Football Team.

Clearly suffering through lack of numbers playing at the top level. I'm not in favour of quotas, I would prefer to see it happen naturally.

But there  is a clear link between so few players - down to about a quarter at the top level now, compared to three quarters when the rest were Scots, Welsh, Irish and Northern Irish - and poorly performing England. It's just not in the simplistic way some see it.

I'm not just talking about results as one can look at 'before' and 'after' and see there's not a huge difference. I'm taking into account the performance on the pitch as well; how impressive did we look? And I don't think the Euros are a fair comparison either. The finals have only come to resemble world cups in terms of size relatively recent. Also the general higher quality of the teams at a Euros can sometimes distort the picture, as in the WC2010 that saw Holland in the final and Italy knocked out at the first stage followed by Italy making the final of Euro 2012 while Holland went out at the first stage losing all their games. A 'good' Euro might simply be a lucky draw and a 'bad' one the reverse, as with Holland and, indeed, the one where England were supposedly in a weak group and the two finalists that tournament were both England's opponents in that group.

The first thing to do is to look at star players and how important they were to the team.

Back in 1982 England went into the WC with injury doubts for Kevin Keegan and Trevor Brooking. Both major players. Yet without them, we qualified from the first group stage with a 100% record including matches against Czechoslovakia and a star studded France of the Platini, Rocheteau, Giresse era.

Going into WC86 we were all concerned about whether Bryan Robson's shoulder would hold up. It didn't and we lost him in the second game. But we still had good performances, getting through to the knockouts and then the infamous quarter final with Argentina.

For WC 98 the country's fans were rocked with the news that Paul Gascoigne was left out of the squad. But we had other midfielders like McManaman, Beckham, Anderton, Ince, Scholes, Merson. We only made the second round this time - facing Argentina again and another penalty defeat and 10-11 - but we did look good.

Then we come to the 'after' era. WC 2002. We all suddenly know what a metatarsal is as Beckham breaks his toe. The nation is on tenterhooks waiting daily for the latest on how he's recovering. See, there's really no point in us going to the WC if he's not fit. That's the difference compared to the 'before' era. And, ultimately, we disappointed when we couldn't take advantage of playing ten man Brazil and having led the game too.

The whole thing was repeated again for WC 2006 when it was Rooney's broken metatarsal. Once again there was really no point in going if he couldn't recover. We still had Owen for goals, of course, but that was still nothing compared to the plethora of strikers we had in the 90s like Shearer, Sheringham, Ferdinand, Owen, Fowler and all available to choose from.

Of course, as soon as he recovered to actually start a game, Owen was out of the finals with his injury in the first few minutes. We made the quarter finals and again went out on penalties and down to ten men. Again.

But aside from the backs to the wall QF, we were pretty rubbish throughout.

Then there was WC 2010 which I would prefer to forget but it's impossible. We were diabolical. The worst ever.

Now look at the actual squads over the 'before' and 'after' eras. Shilton or Clemence. Seaman or Flowers. Then into the noughties and it's Robinson or....er....and then James (yes, really!) or....

We had that business with Green and Carson when they were asked to step in. And now it's the same with Hart or....er.....


2002 - Danny Mills, Trevor Sinclair, Wayne Bridge, Darius Vassell
2006 - Bridge again, Jermaine Jenas, Stewart Downing, Scott Carson
2010 - James & Green, Michael Dawson, Stephen Warnock, Matthew Upson, SWP.

We never used to have squads padded out with players like that. You'd be hard pushed to find their equivalents in past England squads up to and including the 90s especially several each time.

That's where the difference lies; with more England qualified players available they're not necessarily going to be better or make the England team better, although with more of them the possibility of a real gem increases

But any absences for whatever reason - form loss, injury, suspension - are more likely to be covered by players of a similar ability, just as they used to, with no great loss of performance level.