Yeah I agree with you there, they desperately need a salary cap in football, the problem is though that the salary cap needs to be worldwide otherwise all the best players will simply bugger off somewhere else.

I agree to a point, the same is also true in RL (though to a lesser degree). But you have to put up with the initial short term loss of quality in order to redress the imbalance between the domestic league and the national team. If Arsenal as a club really put effort into an academy system that focuses on young English players then there is no doubt that those young English players will improve over the years to the point where they are good enough to take the place of some of the foreign players.

Thats why the RFL have lowered the overseas quota in increments rather than just cutting it, because as you point out the problem is that the foreigners are currently better than the homegrown players.

That's a little like me saying if it wasn't for Bono, I could be the lead singer of U2.

The problem isn't that English kids aren't getting an opportunity to sign schoolboy forms etc at the top clubs, but that their opportunities to progress into the first team are limited by an influx of foreign players who arrive "ready made" and relatively cheap.

The problem is not underinvestment in academies. Look at the amount of money that goes into the Liverpool, Chelsea or Arsenal academy. It's far more than the likes of Ajax, Barcelona and Inter Milan sink into theirs.

The problem is youth coaching.

If Lionel Messi was born in Oldham or Rochdale, he would have been dismissed by whichever volunteer dad was coaching his junior team as being "too small" and "too weak". Abroad, the attitude is to teach a youngster how to play football and then teach him fitness. In the UK, we do it the other way around. That is the root of the problem.

There's also this myth that you can have a "production line" of players. It's absolute nonsense. If it was, Yorkshire would have had no trouble finding another Trueman, GB would have had no problem finding another Hanley and Northern Ireland would have found another George Best.

I agree, it's a problem that all sports face, but poor youth coaching is equally a problem that all sports seem very reluctant to address.

Yeah Id agree with that, its one of the many things that p1sses me off about the amateur game in RL too. Plus there is the issue that young English players usually want a higher wage than young foreign players of the same ability.