Well, I'm very glad McNally doesn't come out with crap like this:

Everton chief executive Robert Elstone launches a defence of the Premier League in the wake of the debate around youth development in England. Football Association chairman Greg Dyke has established a commission to examine how best to improve the fortunes of the senior national side and enable more home-grown talent to come through the domestic club system.

Elstone says: "The Premier League has created the perfect environment to develop world-class players, a research and development laboratory with maximum stress testing and the potential for true Darwinian outcomes.

"It is the political capital leveraged by the revelation that 'only' 30 per cent of total minutes played in the Premier League is English that has moved me to write. How many great players do we actually need to win a World Cup? The Belgians might do it with fifteen? 30 per cent is actually quite a big number when you consider they're playing in the most demanding league in the world. Maybe it's time to think quality and not quantity?"

True Darwinian outcomes? We're going to actually breed our players and hope that, over millions of years, some random mutations will occur which will make them better footballers?

As for "the political capital leveraged by the revelation that...." - no more words necessary here.

Posted By: Tricky Hawes, Oct 11, 12:48:10