havent read the article, but can it really be true, with the amount of ££££ spent from northern clubs this summer?
Yes.
Neville takes into account the Manchester clubs - and the only other club that has spent big is Liverpool, where we have overpaid for mediocre players in the last couple of years because our main targets want to play in Spain/London (see Sanchez, Alexis and Suarez, Luis).
To summarise - he's basically saying that because of the current generation of players in it for the money/as a job, they would prefer to play in Madrid/London/Milan/Barcelona/Munich/Paris/Monaco etc than Newcastle. The other problem (and IMO the more important one) is that because of the stupid money in football, teams like Newcastle/Sunderland/Leeds/Everton/Sheff Wed/Middlesbrough etc feel that to stay/get into the PL, they have to buy rather than promote from youths.
Look at Sunderland for example (chose a random team from the list above). According to Wikipedia there are 28 players in their first team squad. NINE are English. That's what, approximately 33%. Of those nine, THREE are from the North East (Cattermole, Johnson, Graham). That's what, 11%. Go back to when most of these clubs had their best days and their squads were mainly local lads. Lads who understood what it meant to play for Sunderland. Lads who connected with the fans. In turn, that made Roker Park an absolute hellhole for away teams.
That's what Gary Neville is talking about. And he's right. Apart from Man Utd and Man City (and maybe Liverpool, but tbh I worry even for us), it wouldn't surprise me if before long, the top 10 teams in England are all south of Watford Gap.
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