The ENGLISH PROBLEM
Manuel Pellegrini knows he needs more ‘home-grown’ players to stay within the rules but City’s manager says the trouble is that they’ve all become far too expensive
City spent £18m on Jack Rodwell and Scott Sinclair in the summer of 2012, which caused friction with then manager Roberto Mancini, who rarely played them.
Pellegrini said: ‘It’s very difficult to get the best English players because every team wants them. They are expensive and usually they are already at important teams.
‘It’s not easy to bring English players because who would sell to Manchester City? I don’t think Liverpool would sell their four or five important English players (Sturridge, Henderson, Johnson, Gerrard, Sterling). It’s the same for Chelsea or United, every team.
‘It’s the same for us. If someone came here to buy Joe Hart, City would not sell him.
‘We have five English players and three of them — Hart, Lescott and Milner — are very important. The other two, Micah Richards and Jack Rodwell, have had an unlucky season because they’ve had a lot of injuries and it’s difficult for a manager because they don’t have the tempo or the pace of the game. But I am very happy with all the English players here.’
Chelsea have only four homegrown players in their Premier League squad — Ashley Cole, Frank Lampard, John Terry and Gary Cahill — forcing Jose Mourinho to work with a squad of 20, five below the maximum allowed (of whom eight must be homegrown).
It also explains why Chelsea will do everything to get Shaw, a rare example of a young Englishman with the potential to be genuinely world class, if Cole leaves as expected in the summer.
City’s last attempt to boost their homegrown quota when Rodwell and Scott Sinclair arrived created problems. Mancini spent the following season complaining the club had not signed players of the required ability.
Pellegrini’s conundrum of having MANCHESTER City manager Manuel Pellegrini has complained that English players are too expensive as he struggles to put enough ‘homegrown’ stars in his squad to meet Premier League requirements next season.
Pellegrini has been criticised for not fielding any English players in City’s Capital One Cup final victory against Sunderland at Wembley last weekend — although James Milner, Micah Richards, Joleon Lescott, Jack Rodwell and Joe Hart are all in contention to face Wigan Athletic in today’s FA Cup quarter-final at the Etihad Stadium.
Premier League clubs are not allowed to include more than 17 overseas players aged over 21 in their squads. City currently have 15 and Matija Nastasic will be seen as an over-21 player next season.
It means that if Lescott, who is out of contract, leaves in the summer, Pellegrini will be under pressure to find an English replacement or, at the very least, one who meets the Premier League’s ‘homegrown’ requirement of having been with an English club for three years before the age of 21.
The City manager, whose side go to Barcelona following the Wigan tie to try to claw back a 2-0 deficit in the Champions League, agrees with the rule to protect English players.
But he believes it has pushed up prices with a limited availability of homegrown players good enough to play at the top level for the likes of City, Chelsea and Manchester United.
Southampton’s teenage full-back Luke Shaw will cost £30million this summer as England’s biggest clubs are forced into an auction. enough homegrown players when he also wants to sign Porto pair Eliaquim Mangala and Fernando this summer means his current contingent of Englishmen may be forced to stay.
Lescott is out of contract, so he has the freedom to leave, but Richards, Rodwell and Milner will still be under contract and cannot go without the club’s approval — even if they are frustrated at the lack of first-team opportunities.
‘We must first finish this season and we will see what happens,’ said Pellegrini. ‘We know we have to have an amount of English players, so we’ll see the way we do the list next year.
‘Richards, Rodwell, James and Hart all have contracts with the club. Lescott finishes his contract and maybe he will not continue here.
‘The rule is correct, though, of course. We are in England. It’s important for English football to have English players in every team.’
Pellegrini admitted feeling sorry for some of the players who missed out on helping City win their first trophy of the season in a 3-1 victory against Sunderland.
‘Of course, it was very difficult for me to choose the starting XI for the final because a lot of players deserved to play. Lescott played in every round but didn’t play in the final.
‘Milner always deserves to play because he’s a very important player for the squad.
‘It was my intention to bring him on as a substitute, but during the game I decided that we needed another change.
‘But it’s not a problem for Milner because I’m sure he feels that he’s an important player for me.’