The EPL Season so far.......

[PathFinder]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Is there not an argument that if you are indeed good enough you should be playing for a big club?

[TightEnd]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Is there not an argument that if you are indeed good enough you should be playing for a big club?

Well Drinkwater came through the Man U system but like so many couldn't break in and wanted first team football once he hit 22-23 years old. Had to go down to come back up

there are dozens of U21s who 15 years ago would have had an automatic path into the first team but now post Bosman and with the money in the game these guys can't get past the foreign signings

so clubs like leicester, palace, west ham, norwich, west brom etc all have players that have to be on the radar but tend not to be so much

there simply aren't the range of Eglish players playing for top six sides

[TheDazzler]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Here is my mate Paul Doyle of the Guardians team of the season.
He puts Drinkwater in the subs.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/nov/11/premier-league-team-season-so-far

[TightEnd]

interesting

i meant the england 23 (delph, 3 games this season?)  not the team of the season!

[Cf]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Is there not an argument that if you are indeed good enough you should be playing for a big club?

Well Drinkwater came through the Man U system but like so many couldn't break in and wanted first team football once he hit 22-23 years old. Had to go down to come back up

there are dozens of U21s who 15 years ago would have had an automatic path into the first team but now post Bosman and with the money in the game these guys can't get past the foreign signings

so clubs like leicester, palace, west ham, norwich, west brom etc all have players that have to be on the radar but tend not to be so much

there simply aren't the range of Eglish players playing for top six sides

If needing lots of game time was a major factor into getting into the England team do you think players would be put off joining the big teams if they're not guaranteed games?

Or would the money be more important?

[TightEnd]

Well i don't think lots of game time is that important, if you play for the right club

Lingard?

Delph?

all the game time in the wolrd doesn't help Scott Dann does it?

[DungBeetle]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Is there not an argument that if you are indeed good enough you should be playing for a big club?

What's the difference between Chambers at Southampton getting plenty of games, and Chambers at Arsenal in the reserves?  Surely the game time makes him a better bet for England?  I don't see how his transfer of ownership makes him superior.

[stribling]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Shawcross ahead of Dann? Ignoring recent injury

[baldock92]

Nice to see the media recognising Palace for the right reasons, which is more than can be said for Roy Hodgson.

I consider myself to be a fair judge of Palace players (actually couldn't believe that someone said Jason Puncheon should be in the England squad - he is so over-rated it is ridiculous).
However.....Jesse Lingard has 2 decent performance and finds himself elevated to the England squad in front of Zaha.
And Scott Dann has probably been in the top 3 most consistent centre backs in the last 18 months yet still finds himself nowhere near the squad - if he played for Spurs he would be in it!!

agree on Dann

same for Danny Drinkwater, if he played for a big club, would be in

Shawcross ahead of Dann? Ignoring recent injury

Shawcross has been up there for seasons now but is constantly overlooked by Woy Hodgson. Such a big team bias when it comes to squad selection.

[NoCardDSC]

I really think this talk of including Chambers and Lingard in the England set up is pretty absurd, they have both had bang average seasons over the last few albeit there game time not helping there cause.

However talk of players like Drinkwater, Dann, Shawcross I am all for, they have managed to cement there place in squads that are performing well in the PL.

[pleno1]

they've both been top players in the england junior teams and often these players train regularly with the first team when there's injuries/short numbers. Both are seen to be international class and they want to give them experience, exactly the same as when they took Walcott to the world cup (maybe euros) and he didn't play. Lingard has also always been really impressive on his loan deals right?

Shawcross to me is similar mould to Jags, decent defender, but not top, top class and good enough for world cups.

[SuperJez]

Nice read tikay cheers

[Archer]

they've both been top players in the england junior teams and often these players train regularly with the first team when there's injuries/short numbers. Both are seen to be international class and they want to give them experience, exactly the same as when they took Walcott to the world cup (maybe euros) and he didn't play. Lingard has also always been really impressive on his loan deals right?

Shawcross to me is similar mould to Jags, decent defender, but not top, top class and good enough for world cups.

I understand the logic of wanting to give players experience and also you can take into account the number of injuries England are dealing with. However, comparisons with the likes of Walcott or  Sterling, Rooney etc are not really vaild because they were 17 when they made their debuts. Lingard is not a kid - he is 23 in a couple of weeks. There are about 6 or 7 players younger than him in the squad.

[dino1980]

If you've got any interest in football analytics then this is a great article looking at the first 12 weeks of the EPL from an analytics POV: http://statsbomb.com/2015/11/twelve-game-premier-league-2015-16-team-stat-review/

[Archer]

If you've got any interest in football analytics then this is a great article looking at the first 12 weeks of the EPL from an analytics POV: http://statsbomb.com/2015/11/twelve-game-premier-league-2015-16-team-stat-review/

Fascinating - great link.

As you infer, I guess not for everyone!