FOREIGN IMPORTS IN A PREMIER LEAGUE PLAYGROUND

Ever since the induction of the Premier League in the season of 1992 - 93 , there have been a steady influx of World stars with massive reputations arriving to show their skills at our grounds up and down the country .
Sky TV ploughed in over £300 million for a 5 year contract with the promise of changing the game forever . They kept their promise
Back then there was only one foreign manager , Irishman Joe Kinnear in charge of Wimbledon .
16 of the 22 sides were managed by Englishmen .
20 clubs had British born captains ( the other 2 were Irish )
How times have changed !

It was also the start of Manchester United's dominance of the competition with the mercurial Frenchman Eric Cantona scoring 15 goals to help his side claim their first league title in 26 years.
They had a top class Goalkeeper in Peter Scmeichel , a flying winger Andrei Kanchelskis and in between a splattering of well-timed fantastic British talent coming through to compliment the older heads . A perfect mix .
The year saw the emergence of Ryan Giggs who at 19 was voted Young Player of the Year .
In twenty years of playing at the top level , no one has witnessed the change as much as him.

Now I know there were successful foreign imports in the English game before the start of the Premier league but since the money started rolling into the clubs , the vast majority of World stars played in Italy because it was considered the best and maybe the most lucrative in terms of wages, Dutchmen Ruud Gullitt , Frank Rijkaard and  Marco Van Basten all turning out for AC Milan and having great success. Diego Maradonna and the cream of  South America were also there .
We were still exporting players abroad, the most high profile being Paul Gascoigne and David Platt who both arrived in Italy because that was the league to be in.

It was only when English clubs had the same bargaining power as the Italians and the Spanish did they compete for the top players signatures and offer more substantial wage packages.

In the first couple of years the British transfer record was broken numerous times but the players being transferred were British born or already UK based .

Clubs began to shop overseas for much lower prices and were getting arguably better players with proven track records for there money.

In 1995 , the first Italian arrived to play in the Premier League, but Andrea Silenzi was a bitter disappointment to Nottingham Forest Fans he 'performed' in front of.
They had not been put off thou and better Italians came to Britain , most notably Ravanelli , Mancini,, Guttuso and Carbone .

 Quality players were soon arriving , Ruud Gullit,, Gianfranco Zola, Frank Lebouef, Roberto Di Matteo and Gianluca Vialli all came to Chelsea .
With these players on their staff,  Chelsea  were becoming a real force but it is hard to think of another British player to develop through the ranks other than John Terry from this period to the present day.
In 1999 Chelsea became the first side to field an entirely foreign starting line-up.

When your team is successful and challenging for trophies , few supporters care where the playing staff are assembled  from . The clubs make a fortune in shirt sales with a big name arrival.

Whilst Manchester United sprinkled foreign stars in amongst their British ones , Arsenal had a heavy French and Dutch influence which broke Alex Ferguson's stranglehold on the title to establish Arsene Wengers Gunners as the main rivals to Manchester's dominance.
Wenger was the first to name an all foreign 16 man squad.

With African nations performing well at the 1994 and 1998 , the top clubs widened their scouting networks to include Africa as well as Asia after South Korea'sand Japan's rise to prominence in 2002.

In fact you would find it difficult  to come up with a Country that has not been represented in the Premiership by 2012.

The quality of pitches have vastly improved and the suspicions that the South Americans would struggle come winter time have been largely dispelled and other reasons can explain the varying success rates.
For every Juninho , Gilberto Silva or Carlos Tevez, there was a Fabio Rochemback , Alfonso Alves and Emerson (sorry Middlesborough).

Whether the players struggle to cope with the physicality of the premiership,  get homesick or simply find the sheer pace and direct nature of the game here difficult to handle is open for discussion.
Many have come up well short of what is required of them .
It is the same as any job in terms of learning the language , and communication and even understanding the dressing room banter is vital to not feel isolated in strange surroundings .

 Some thou,  have showed real commitment , sparkled in the limelight and have enhanced their reputations .
Most notably the midfield pairing of Petit and Viera along with Dennis Bergkamp and of course Thierry Henry at Arsenal.
 Cristiano Ronaldo , Ruud Van Nistelrooy , Nemanja Vidic at Man Utd .
There are of course many others who have added flair and an abundance of skill very few British players could dream of .
 David Ginola won many fans at first Newcastle and then Tottenham with his silky skills , and maybe the female interest due to his french accent and the hair . He was worth it as the advert told us .

The country has still produced top class youngsters but whether the amount of foreign players in the league has had a detrimental effect on our young players coming through and although this is hard to measure from an International standpoint as we haven't been any good from 1967 onwards,  I do feel it hasn't helped .

The top 6 clubs at present in the league have only one first choice English goalkeeper, the thankfully outstanding Joe Hart .
Wayne Rooney is the only striker guaranteed a starting place , so there is foreign player influence at the business ends of these sides .

Despite employment laws being tightened to stem the flow of foreign players , only 8 of the 25 man squad have to be ' home grown ' . This rule only applies to over 21's.

It was calculated that in 2001 , 36 per cent of players in the premier league were foreign .
By 2009 only 40 per cent of the squads had English born players but had an average of 13 footballers from abroad on their playing staff.

Too many ? Is it too late to reverse the trend or is the main reason for the huge amount of foreign talent here due to our own players costing too much when an overseas player is seen as a better financial alternative.    
Joleon Lescott was bought by Man City for over £20 million in 2009, a year earlier they signed Vincent kompany for a reported £6 million.
In the january transfer window of last year Liverpool paid out £30 million for the inexperienced Andy Carroll , while his replacement at Newcastle Demba Ba was signed on a free transfer.
Two examples of how inflated a transfer can become between two Premier league sides for players not even considered good enough to play currently for their country.

 Twenty years on and we have Foreign investment in our clubs, only Wayne Rooney occupies a place in the top 6 Goalscoring charts.
There are still a healthy supply of British Managers amongst the 20 teams , but only 5 are English .
Surprisingly thou the number of overseas managers has dropped to also 5 .

 Harry Redknapp is quite rightly being touted as the next England manager but then there isn't a huge pool to choose from , unless we go down the recent trend and go overseas ......again
Sven flattered to deceive , and Capello is stuttering to the finish of his contract without any improvement noticeable in the national fortunes.

Let's hope not ..........