To be honest Australia and England are probably about the same standard - both are bang average with no world class players at all.
The reason for that is simple, in both the EPL and the A-League there are foreign players dominating the key positions in the team.
Brisbane have just replaced their top Aussie striker with a 38 year old Massimo Maccarone and virtually every team has a foreign striker and playmaker.
Look at the EPL and you see exactly the same thing - the only England striker at a top team is Kane and when was the last time we produced a play maker? Scholes probably.
The Aussies certainly looked better at the last World Cup than we did - and at least they haven't lost to fucking Iceland.
We're far superior to Australia, especially at youth level.
Foreign players dominating a domestic league is tired argument. 64% of players in the premiership are foreign, not much different to the 60% in Belgium, 53% in Germany and 52% in Italy.
The slight difference is that the best players from Belgium especially, all play abroad. This even partially applies to the German squad.
It wouldn't matter having 64% of players in the PL being foreign, if many of our top players were playing abroad instead...
If our top players were playing abroad would we be preforming a lot better? Past experience says no, things aren't that clear cut. Only thing that we'll be sure of is people complaining that the English league is poor and none of the best players play in it.
The problem is that very few players are wanted abroad by the best teams, or are prepared to lower their wages to play for a lesser team
But my point was, that when Southgate picks his team, he has a national top league with only 36% players being English, BUT not because the rest are playing abroad, as instead they're either not playing or are in the Championship. That's a really poor selection to pick from, especially when many of the top flight English players are frankly journeymen
Journeymen is a bit harsh. Problem is the current crop with a few exceptions aren't that great. Thankfully the youth teams have done well perhaps due to St. George's Park.
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