Ginola believes England are falling behind Germany and Spain.
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Former Newcastle and Tottenham star David Ginola says he feels the increasing number of foreign imports into the Premier League are seeing the England national team fall behind, according to Sky Sports.
There have been concerns for some time that young English players are not being given enough of a chance at the top clubs, with Ginola’s former team Newcastle in particular relying a lot on the foreign market at the moment and fielding very few English players.
This also comes after a surprisingly low number of English players involved in the Champions League this week, with only 15 playing between the four Premier League sides competing in the tournament, compared to 44 from Spain and 31 from Germany.
Ginola himself was one of the first great names to come from abroad and make an impact on these shores in spells for Newcastle, Tottenham, Everton and Aston Villa, but he feels that Spain and Germany are currently working harder at developing their own players at a grass-roots level.
However, the Frenchman admitted that the main concern for clubs at the moment is to find players who will perform for them, and as long as they are allowed to bring in players from wherever they want, they will continue to do so.
“If a club wants to buy 10, 12, 15 French players, or Spanish, or German, that’s up to the club,” he said. “The only concern is that they do well for the club.
“It’s not only Newcastle – most of the teams in England should have more English players. I’ve said that for many, many years.
“It doesn’t seem to be any different. Every year, you see more and more foreign signings. Clubs should concentrate more on bringing young English talent to the top teams and improving their academies with better coaches.
“Barcelona and Bayern Munich have been working very, very hard from the grassroots to (get players to) know how to pass the ball. It’s something you learn from a young age, so it needs to start very young.”