“The players haven’t delivered, They should be here answering questions on why their performances were so poor, to be honest with you.”

Stuart Pearce’s comments after the England U21s crashed out of their latest tournament in Israel. However, I felt his comments pretty much sum up England as a national team throughout their many ‘transitional periods’ for a good a couple of decades.

As he continued it became true. "We've lost games before, but collectively in this tournament we haven't delivered for whatever reason. The players have to come out and be strong and ask themselves 'how am I going to get better?'"

Pearce’s contract wasn’t renewed (pushed out, sacked, whatever your term). He’s quite obviously and deservedly an England legend throughout his playing career with nation-winning performances.

Managerially he talks a lot of sense and knows the game well even if his style of management is at times a bit rebellious.

He has a decent record qualifying for tournaments in his six years of managing the second string. The highlights though, are seemingly more like lowlights. Making the semi-finals in the 2007 competition only to lose on penalties to the Dutch. In 2009 he guided the team to the final to be smashed 4-0 by a young up and coming German side.

This time around Pearce’s men crashed out of the group stages after defeats to Italy, Norway and Israel. With one goal and no points, in any tournament it simply isn’t good enough.

But is it all Stuart Pearce’s fault that England fail at U21 level or has he been harshly treated?

The next England U21 manager will have the same problem as Roy Hodgson. He will have a very tough job on his hands to get the best out of players that rarely reach their full potential when they pull on a England Jersey.

The FA have made U21 football an important factor in their quest to develop young talent. But it doesn’t quite add up when players that qualify to play for the U21s are not made available, whether that's due to their club or a call-up to the national side.

For example Arsenal’s Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was not released for the England U21s because he was called up to the national side to play in a friendly against Brazil. This is meant to be one of our promising players so why not play him in a tournament which he and the team can benefit from!?

This year’s tournament included Norway who had four players that played in their senior side recently but came back to play for the U21s. I very much doubt you’d see and English player have the same mentality, it’s as if “Now I’ve been called to the senior side why should I bother?”. But the truth is it dents a player's development. I feel that the England national side have lost touch with their approach and give players an ‘easy call up’

Countries like Spain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands produce their talent in their respective leagues and produce them in their U21 sides and if they’re good enough they go on to the senior side and earn their call. You could argue that the Premier League is different and is the best league in the world, but we don’t use the homegrown player criteria enough in my opinion.

Until we include our best young players in a consistent squad that can develop our future will not include a World Cup.

We have the players to build around, the likes of Jack Wilshere, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Danny Welbeck, Wilfred Zaha, Daniel Sturridge, Phil Jones, Chris Smalling, Kyle Walker etc.

The FA need to have a long look at their next appointment in the managerial hot seat. Who can develop, coach and produce England’s youngsters in the right way.

Nevertheless, it says it all when Manchester United’s number one goalkeeper is in the U21 side for Spain. They know how to produce. It's factors like this that we call them the World and European Champions in recent years, players are trained and properly managed/coached and shown how to play the game in the right way. It’s from that young age (grassroots) they learn the game.

In my opinion England have no chance of winning silverware unless we produce our youth in key tournaments. It’s all very well letting them have their chance. But the chance has to be at the right time.

DanLyles added 17:12 - Jun 19 Interesting article. England always seem to play second fiddle to the clubs (because they pay their wages) and I think the FA should go further and enforce a greater minimum quota of English players who need to start every Premiership and Championship game. Say at least 2 England players 21 and under, and 5 in total. That would give Hodgson and Pearce's successor plenty of Premiership players getting regular football to choose from. I hope at grass roots level that we are also placing greater emphasis on young players being able to keep possession.

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itsonlyme added 09:04 - Jun 21 The problem here is twofold. What hope does the England national team have of winning anything, when the Premier League is blinded by its own importance in the football world. Roy Hodgson begged them not to play 'big' games before England's vital world cup games coming up. What did the Premier League do? - fix Arsenal v Spurs and Liverpool v Man Utd, (I believe). That is disgusting and reckless. Also, the lack of under 21 players playing in the Premier League is also shocking. It would appear both the FA and the Premier League could not give a toss about England, which is a shame, because I follow them with a passion and am very upset when we do not perform, whether it be the first team, the under 21's, under18's, schoolboys or the women's team or whatever England team is playing in whatever sport. I am proud of my country and want them to win everytime, but whilst we have money ruling everything in football, the teams will always take second place and we have absolutely no hope of winning anything until we follow the Spanish blueprint!

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MattinLondon added 09:33 - Jun 21 The influence of the Premier League has hardly helped, but let’s not kid ourselves that before the onset of the Premier League the national team were world beaters. England has always been a bit of a let down in terms of international competition (apart from 1966). At a base level it’s because as a nation, our coaching has traditionally been about power and speed rather than tactics and technical ability. As a consequence English players appear to be less ‘football clever’ and less adaptable than their European counterparts –maybe this is because English players stay in England rather than playing in other footballing cultures as what a lot of German, Dutch and Spanish players do. If you stay in one workplace too long you become one-dimensional. As well as this the hype of the Premier League helps build young players into stars when they haven’t even done anything. One example is Sterling at Liverpool – a few good games and he wins himself a 50k a week contract – something is a bit wrong there.

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theobald1985 added 13:26 - Jun 21 i agree and have posted before about there being a quota for players produced by the clubs academy. i dont think they should have to be under 21 in paticular but i think if the quota was for 2 players and it was for the starting line up not the match day squad then they would need 5 players in the first team squad to cover this so young players would always get a chance as 2 senior academy produced players could not play every game. I dont think we should get too exited about the spanish model. spain have always played passing possesion football but only with this current crop have they ever done well- have we ruled out good luck as the reason? I get annoyed with the FA harping on about possesion football and non competitive football for kids etc.I am a youth coach myself and we are constantly blamed for the state of the national team. WHY? any player we have who are paticulary good get taken by academys and player development centres which my youngest lad goes too and all they teach them is possesion and finding space. Obviously we dont want long ball football but what is wrong with high tempo attacking football pressing high up the pitch! the odd long ball does not hurt anybody either. I personally feel like falling asleep watching endless sideways passing in these internationals and im not the only one who feels this I am sure. In the end I would rather not win the world cup if it means we can keep the english style of play-not long ball but fast and fearless that is whatt our football league and premiership is all about.

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MattinLondon added 15:28 - Jun 21 @theobald1985 High tempo attacking football is all well and good but it does leave a team open to the counter-attack. Unlike you I'm not a coach but the first thing kids shuld learn is technique and how to control the ball etc. Slightly off-topic but I do get annoyed when professional players seem unable to control the ball properly - I do sometimes wonder what they do in training (especially more so when they claim that the ball came to them on their wrong foot).

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theobald1985 added 16:29 - Jun 21 mattin london i agree re the counter attack but then evry system has weak points to exploit. sometimes i think we repect forigen sides passing ability too much and try to play the same way when if we just went for the throat as it were we might have more success...of course we would get the odd tonking but it would be better to watch. Im 28 now but when I was a kid we did loads of work on ball control and now I do loads with the kids so i dont think coaches are not teaching it its just in england you are pressed so much harder where as on the continent they seem content to allow the player to recieve choose his pass and play the ball without any real pressure. I was always taught that when we have not got the ball press them but I suppose spanish kids for example get used to not being pressed so look more comftable on the ball but lets not forget alot of these players struggle with the pace of our game. on thw whole id watch the PL over la liga every time

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