Sparked by a discussion on Twitter following a tweet by @englandyouth, we will look into English talents today. Premier League clubs are complaining that they are required to have homegrown players in their teams while, according to them, there is little talent available. So the rules of supply and demand dictate high prices for the few top young English players. Or so it goes.
An alternative version of this story is, that English clubs invest too little in generating new young players and hence created the shortage themselves. The big clubs should open youth performance centers such as in many continental countries to support the education of the next generation. Due to the decreasing prices this may actually be cheaper in the long run than maintaining the status quo.
We want to put these hypothesis to a test, by looking at the top talents with English nationality accoring to Goalimpact. Goalimpact is a massively adjusted plus/minus score for football that rates all players world-wide. If we see few talents compared to other nations there, the lack of youth performance centers might really be a problem. If we see also few players at low prices, then the EPL clubs may also have a point in their short sighted view on the player market. So here is the list. As always, we anonymize players that are listed at values below one million Euros because we provide this as a scouting service to clubs. If you are club manager or trainer and are interested in the player names, please contact us at info@goalimpact.com.
First finding is that there are not too many players that have a expected carreer peak of above 130. Given the risk involved in the development of young players, top EPL teams may not want to sign below that threshold. Given that English players are unlikely to be worse than Spanish or Dutch by nature, there is apparently really a lack of development in English youth football. As a result, the supply of young players has hard times to meet the enforced demand by top EPL clubs. So there seems to be some truth in the second hypothesis. English clubs should set up youth performance centers.
On the other side, the expensive talents are exclusively those playing either already in the Premier League or in the Championship. That is suprising because there are many talents in League One and League two, too. We'd go as far as to claim that this should be enough to meet the EPL demand without EPL teams being forced to pay scarcity prices. Therefore, it seems difficult to fully support the first hypothesis that EPL teams have too few talents to sign and hence are in a bidding contest for the best. We'd put out an alternative hypothesis:
Especially poorer clubs should adopt their scouting behaviour. About half of the players listed above as "<1M€" will eventually become top-class. Why not leave the known talents to those teams that don't care about money as much as you do and scout off the paved roads?
A last obersvation: Only one out of the top 25 English talents plays outside of England. So we agree with Steve
An alternative version of this story is, that English clubs invest too little in generating new young players and hence created the shortage themselves. The big clubs should open youth performance centers such as in many continental countries to support the education of the next generation. Due to the decreasing prices this may actually be cheaper in the long run than maintaining the status quo.
We want to put these hypothesis to a test, by looking at the top talents with English nationality accoring to Goalimpact. Goalimpact is a massively adjusted plus/minus score for football that rates all players world-wide. If we see few talents compared to other nations there, the lack of youth performance centers might really be a problem. If we see also few players at low prices, then the EPL clubs may also have a point in their short sighted view on the player market. So here is the list. As always, we anonymize players that are listed at values below one million Euros because we provide this as a scouting service to clubs. If you are club manager or trainer and are interested in the player names, please contact us at info@goalimpact.com.
| Rank | Player | Team | GoalImpact | PeakGI | tm.de | League |
| 1 | 81,2 | 144,6 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 2 | 73,9 | 143,1 | <1 M€ | Championship | ||
| 3 | 89,7 | 141,8 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 4 | Will Hughes | Derby County | 93,5 | 137,8 | 7.000.000 € | Championship |
| 5 | Luke Shaw | Southampton FC | 90,5 | 137,7 | 13.000.000 € | Premier League |
| 6 | 92,0 | 136,8 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 7 | 75,5 | 135,7 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 8 | 85,5 | 134,6 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 9 | Nathaniel Chalobah | Middlesbrough FC | 93,4 | 134,0 | 4.000.000 € | Championship |
| 10 | 84,2 | 132,3 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 11 | Raheem Sterling | Liverpool FC | 91,4 | 132,0 | 13.000.000 € | Premier League |
| 12 | 99,0 | 130,7 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 13 | 82,8 | 130,1 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 14 | John Stones | Everton FC | 95,1 | 129,6 | 4.000.000 € | Premier League |
| 15 | 89,2 | 129,5 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 16 | 89,7 | 128,8 | <1 M€ | League Two | ||
| 17 | James Ward-Prowse | Southampton FC | 89,1 | 128,8 | 3.500.000 € | Premier League |
| 18 | 76,8 | 128,4 | <1 M€ | Premier League | ||
| 19 | 87,4 | 128,3 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 20 | Nick Powell | Wigan Athletic | 94,9 | 127,5 | 5.000.000 € | Championship |
| 21 | Calum Chambers | Southampton FC | 85,4 | 127,3 | 2.000.000 € | Premier League |
| 22 | 84,6 | 127,3 | <1 M€ | Championship | ||
| 23 | 89,7 | 125,9 | <1 M€ | League One | ||
| 24 | 91,9 | 125,8 | <1 M€ | A-League | ||
| 25 | 78,8 | 125,8 | <1 M€ | League Two |
First finding is that there are not too many players that have a expected carreer peak of above 130. Given the risk involved in the development of young players, top EPL teams may not want to sign below that threshold. Given that English players are unlikely to be worse than Spanish or Dutch by nature, there is apparently really a lack of development in English youth football. As a result, the supply of young players has hard times to meet the enforced demand by top EPL clubs. So there seems to be some truth in the second hypothesis. English clubs should set up youth performance centers.
On the other side, the expensive talents are exclusively those playing either already in the Premier League or in the Championship. That is suprising because there are many talents in League One and League two, too. We'd go as far as to claim that this should be enough to meet the EPL demand without EPL teams being forced to pay scarcity prices. Therefore, it seems difficult to fully support the first hypothesis that EPL teams have too few talents to sign and hence are in a bidding contest for the best. We'd put out an alternative hypothesis:
EPL clubs do not scout in League One and Two as much as they should and hence miss a lot of promising talents. The lack of scouting scope creates artifical scarcity.
 |
Luke Shaw is the most expensive talent world-wide on tm.de. Is it because he is the best or because he plays Premier League? |
A last obersvation: Only one out of the top 25 English talents plays outside of England. So we agree with Steve
@englandyouth A good strategy for a young English player would be to go abroad at 16 and return to England at 21.
— Steve Lawrence (@SteveLawrence_) March 9, 2014It will certainly not work for everybody, but currently apparently only very few follow that path.
