The Premier League – and Chelsea in particular – are among Europe’s worst for fielding native-born players. English players only received 16% of Chelsea’s total playing time so far this season.
One thing Chelsea’s fans and detractors can agree upon is the ever-dwindling number of English players in the Blues’ side. A study released by the CIES Football Observatory confirmed what many football watchers already knew: Chelsea does not showcase native-born talent.
Chelsea’s much-maligned centre-back Gary Cahill accounts for approximately two-thirds of Chelsea’s 16%. Cahill has 630 Premier League minutes this season. His usual centre-back partner and countryman John Terry has 360 minutes. Chelsea’s patient debutante Nathaniel Chalobah registered a statistically insignificant one minute in the league.
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While the CIES study only reported the 2016/17 season to date, seasons in the recent past would tell much the same story. Last season, Terry and Cahill each notched over 1900 minutes. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Jake Clarke-Salter and Tammy Abraham combined for under 500 minutes.
The last time Chelsea had three or more English players with over 1000 minutes each was 2013/14. Terry, Cahill, Frank Lampard and Ashley Cole formed the Blues’ last English nucleus.
Only Watford has fielded fewer English players this season, coming in at 9%. At the other end of the scale, Bournemouth rated the highest at 81%. Defending champions Leicester were the only team in the top 10 (sixth place) of the CIES’s table with a Premier League championship.
When Watford is removed from the data, a relationship emerges between the number of years a club has been in the Premier League since 2006 and the percentage of minutes played by Englishmen. Newcomers like Bournemouth and Burnley top the list. Clubs who have spent the entirety of the past decade are clustered toward the bottom, with the exception of Everton.
Interestingly, the seven clubs that have been in the Premier League each of the last 10 years have been in the Premier League from its beginning.
The data suggests that as teams prolong their stay in the Premier League they will decrease the amount of playing time given to English-born players. An extension of this would be determining if this is due to fewer Englishmen in the starting XI or fewer in the squad as a whole.
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The increased commercial and footballing pressures of staying up in the Premier League likely break on the backs of English-born players. Clubs often learn that the squad that earned promotion to the Premier League is not sufficient to stay there. They sign new players – often foreign – as part of their survival fight.
If they are relegated, their newly increased wage bill will follow them into the Championship. The lower income in the Championship – even with a parachute payment – can threaten a club’s financial viability.
The result? Newly-promoted clubs start acting like Premier League mainstays. They immediately enter the transfer market arms race. While the top few clubs battle for the title and Champions League slots to cover their transfer budgets, bottom-half teams do the same just to stay up.
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Nearly identical dynamics control the opposite ends of the Premier League. Once a few clubs start scouring the world for top talent, all clubs must do the same or risk relegation and a deep red ledger.
Several measures in the CIES Football Observatory’s research showed that English football is Europe’s worst league for native-born players. Whether this is primarily driven by financial or football concerns – to whatever extent the two are separated – no easy solutions emerge for reversing the trend.
Absent a mandate requiring a certain percentage of English players in each Premier League squad, English footballers are not likely to play in their top domestic league. This could have a significant impact on the English game and the development of English players. The Football Association and the national coach will need to work closely to develop a long-range plan. Oh wait…