This week on the Gadsby's England Round-Up, Gadsby previews the beginning of another qualification campaign as England prepare to face Bulgaria and Switzerland.  The road to Euro 2012 begins, but is England's journey likely to be any less bumpy?


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Gadsby and partner-in-crime Nik Goldman preview England vs Hungary as things seem to be going from bad-to-worse around the England camp

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Oh, how Richard Scudamore needs his bulls to start tearing around again. Periods between the end of failed World Cup campaigns and the beginning of the domestic season are slightly odd: the fans' disappointment and anger almost reaches its rightful target, but then the domestic season seems to be the ultimate distraction, a eradication of recent memory.

Scudamore's admission that the Premier League may not be helping the England team is as grotesque as Marlboro saying its product isn't really aiding lung cancer sufferers. One thing the Premiership has helped is Scudamore's bank balance, rest assured of that. As if his stewardship wasn't enough of a treacherous thorn in the side of English football already, this scurrilous attempt to somehow crudely endear himself to those passionate about English football by offering this post-World Cup pre-Premiership 'filler' tells you all you need to know about Richard Scudamore, not to mention the set of cronies and crooks around him who have all done their part to poison the England football team.

You can add Sam Allardyce to that list. Yesterday, he demanded Prime Minister David Cameron lower income tax so that more foreign players could come to the Premier League. The same Sam Allardyce who said getting the England job would be "the greatest honour of his career". As bad as things have been, thank goodness he never achieved that "honour". I've never been a fan of Allardyce; he is to classy footballing technique what Walmart is to Harrods. It seems the same thing can be said about the class of his character now, too. Never mind British society, education, infrastructure and the health service, let's lower taxes so Sam Allardyce's new Icelandic defender can keep more of his paltry fifty thousand pounds a week, the poor soul.

Just hold on, Big Sam and Little Richard, your beloved Premier League begins again in one week; you can merrily continue the ongoing sale of your souls.

For Gerrard, it was virtually too late anyway, though the typically-tiresome commitment of his future to Liverpool Football Club is yet another nail in the almost-fully-formed coffin of his international career; yet, at 28, Joe Cole still had a chance to better himself by taking the outstretched hand of Jose Mourinho, and signing for Real Madrid, or indeed one of several other come hithers from various Spanish and Italian clubs. Instead, he joins that perpetual, minuscule mindset that is the English player, and consigns himself to Saturdays and Sundays playing the total footballers of Wigan, Blackburn and Bolton. For Joe and co., football outside of England's blessed plot isn't really proper football, and England would win everything if they just played more like Premier League clubs. And the £90,000 per week? Oh, no -- not about the money! Apparently, to slot firmly into the grooves of mediocrity when football history looks back on you is well worth the £90,000 per week. Glad to see you doing your part after England's worst ever World Cup, Joe. Cheers.

But does the English media point out how these English players are twisting the knife into their own country? Surely there is a huge debate going on? Surely the back pages of The Guardian, Telegraph, Times, the BBC football site et al are filled with journalists commenting on the abject lack of English players playing abroad destroying the England team? I mean it's as obvious as the sun in the sky, isn't it?

Nope. Since the World Cup, I have seen two side columns in English newspapers, and one posting on the BBC website, and they merely asked the question whether or not it might be good for the England team if English players played abroad. Hmm, I wonder.

What on earth is going on? Have English journalists' brains dropped out? In fact, it's probably much more down to journalistic cynicism rather than ignorance. If the best English players left the Premiership, the interest in their columns and articles and commentaries would diminish. They need a certain "Englishness" during the domestic season as they do during a World Cup, and had Rooney, Terry, Gerrard and Lampard gone to play abroad, the edge to many of their on and off field stories might be taken away.

It seems English players and English media want nothing more than for England to do well -- as long as it doesn't get in their way.

Gadsby talks about new World Champions, Spain and what's next for England?

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Gadsby discusses the debacle which was England's World Cup. What is next for England Football?
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"They weren't good enough, they were too tired, the formation never worked, the manager got it completely wrong, they looked like they didn't care, they were defensively awful, Rooney did nothing, Lampard and Gerrard never performed."

All probably true, none getting to the crux of the matter. I have been banging a drum for nearly 20 years now but no one seems to listen to the beat, except for Chris Waddle in his welcome outbursts over the last week, and the South Africa debacle has proved it above and beyond doubt: England will never win anything while their players play in the Premiership.

A sobering fact for you: since France '98, Premiership players, no matter from which country, have flopped at World Cups and European Championships. Which Premier League players have truly starred at major tournaments? The vast majority of World Cup and Euro semifinalists over the last ten years have come from the Spanish and Italian, German and French leagues. 2010 is going to be no exception. The Premiership's finest have again bombed in South Africa -- Drogba, Ronaldo, Evra, Carvalho, Torres so far, and, oh, yes, not to forget the entire England team.

The Premier League may be supercharged entertainment, but it is basically an exhibition league that has the tactical and technical sophistication of a three-legged rhinoceros. For Bolton Wanderers (new FA clairvoyant Phil Gartside's club) vs. Blackburn Rovers, read Sevilla vs. Real Zaragoza for example, both likely mid-table clashes in the Premiership and La Liga. Spot the difference? Exactly.

Not to mention the crude physical nature of the Premier League. Players are just more injury-prone in England. Just ask Essien, Ballack and Torres. Beckenbauer might have been stirring it up, but we know now it was the right dish all along. "Kick and rush" and "burnt out" perfectly sum up the Premier League and its players.

What about the Champions League successes of Manchester United and Liverpool, no doubt you ask? Excesses, more like. Yes, they, plus Chelsea and Arsenal have been just about able to sustain a good enough technical level in Europe due to the salacious gluttony of Abramaovich, Glazer et al in coaxing foreign mercenaries who have already attained a high level of technical skill in their own countries' far superior levels of football development, but these are papering over cracks. The cracks reveal a level of technical ability utterly inferior to that of the rest of Europe, borne out in no clearer way than at the highest level, international football. And do not be surprised if Premier League clubs' European success begins to dwindle over the next few years as the world's top, top players more and more choose Europe over England.

We cannot really blame Lampard, Gerrard, Terry, and Rooney for simply not being good enough in Bloemfontein last Sunday, but we can blame them completely for not getting good enough. They had the basic talent, but it could simply not be nurtured in the provincial little mindset of their Premiership bases. They have all turned down offers to play in Italy and Spain time after time, often when Barcelona and Real Madrid beckoned. Simply unforgivable. By doing so, they have cost their country a semi-finals place at least. That should be looked upon virtually as high treason.

Unfortunately, the fans -- yes, the fans -- must bear some of the blame. They rightfully hammer the England team, yet how many of them will be back at their Premier League club in six weeks, supporting the organisation which has been the greatest cancer on the England team they are supposedly so passionate about. Ask the supporters of Bayern Munich, Stuttgart and Dortmund if they put club above country...not in a million years. It's one of the savagely bizarre contradictions of the English football supporter. But now, after what your club's league has done to England, if you support your club over your country, in my view you are no longer a true England supporter.

If the Football Association has any sense, it will pay for Messrs. Wilshere, Rodwell, Adam Johnson, Walcott, Hart plus any other young English player with a modicum of promise, to leave England and its dreadfully-inhibiting football league, and play in Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland or South America. The Premiership can then continue to crock overseas players till its heart's content until it collapses in on itself.

While we try to fix the long-term problems of why England is not producing and developing world class talent within its own shores, never has there been a more obvious short-term fix than to send the best that we have got to just about anywhere else.

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