English Premier League (Football/Soccer)

The English Premier League is a very diverse league!
Many players play in the league from different countries and cultures, and most of the players are not from England (or the UK!). The players come from places ranging from countries in Europe and Africa to Asia, the Americas and Austrailia and Oceania!

I hope you enjoy this article I found about this very topic!

The number of English players starting matches in the Premier League this season plunged by almost 15 per cent to its lowest-ever figure, Inside Sport can reveal.

Following the staging of Manchester Uniteds postponed final league game against Bournemouth on Tuesday night, the overall figures for the campaign show that just 31 per cent of all starters were qualified to represent England.

That is down from 36.3 per cent last season, with an average of just over 68 English players starting each game week, compared to almost 80 in 2014-15.

The previous lowest percentage was 32 per cent, or just over 70 players per game week, during the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons.

Those figures prompted the creation of Football Association chairman Greg Dykes England Commission, which proposed radical changes aimed at improving the fortunes of the national team.

The FA declined to comment on the latest statistics, which it has nevertheless been updating on its Twitter feed throughout the season.

The period since Dykes commission was formed has brought the emergence of a new generation of England players, many of whom were named in Roy Hodgsons provisional squad for this summers European Championship.

Indeed, more than half of the 26-strong party have never played in a major finals and half of those were virtual unknowns this time two years ago, including the likes of Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy.

The theory that a numerical drop in the number of English starters in the Premier League is detrimental to the national team arguably faces its biggest test, therefore, at the Euros.

If England repeat their 2014 World Cup flop with a team including the likes of Kane, Alli and Vardy, the hypothesis will be reinforced.

Number of English players in the top flight

But if the squad secure the countrys first major quarter-final for a decade – or fare even better – it will provide ammunition to those who believe their fortunes on the international stage depend almost exclusively on the quality, not quantity, of players available for selection.

Englands two best performances at a major tournament in recent memory, their runs to the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup and Euro 96, occurred either side of the inaugural Premier League season, when the percentage of English starters was 69.

However, that period also encompassed two of their worst displays, at Euro 92 and the failure even to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the United States.

They managed to reach three successive quarter-finals up until the 2006 World Cup, which took place at the end of a season in which the number of English Premier League starters had fallen to 39 per cent.

But as the figure has continued an overall downward trend in the decade since, their fortunes have begun to wane, culminating in their worst-ever performance at a finals at the last World Cup in Brazil, where they were eliminated after just two matches.

The Premier League introduced the Elite Player Performance Plan five years ago partly to help improve the quality of English youngsters and bring them up to the standard of some of their foreign counterparts.

Insisting the EPPP was already beginning to bear fruit, the league revealed that 67 home-grown players of all nationalities were handed debuts in the Premier League this season, compared with 54 last term.

It did not confirm how many of them were English.

Credits: Ben Rumsby @ telegraph.co.uk