United Confirm Squad
Toon name squad in accordance with new rules
Newcastle today confirmed their squad in accordance with the new homegrown rules introduced this season in an attempt by the authorities to try and promote English Youth players getting a chance at the top clubs.
It's good to see the FA making attempts to help the English game and the national team, lets be honest after the perforamces in South Africa any help is welcome, although im not convinced how much these rules are actually going to help. The main flaw that is evident straight away is that a player can be homegrown based on them being affiliated to the FA or Welsh FA for a period of three seasons or 36 months prior to 21st birthday, so even if they are from outside the UK then if they meet that criteria they are officially homegrown so based on that are the rules really promoting English youth?
I think one thing that the rules will maybe help with is the bigger teams simply buying up and hogging players. We have seen with Man City that the rules have forced them to ship out some players so that they are not sitting kicking their heels but this isn't neceesarily achieving the primary aim of the rules.
I suppose we shall see if this has any kind of positive effect in the long term, in the meantime Newcastle have submitted the following squad:
Sol Campbell, Steven Taylor, Shola Ameobi, Joey Barton, Danny Guthrie, Peter Lovenkrands, Jose Enrique, Alan Smith, Leon Best, Fabricio Coloccini, Jonas Gutierrez, Steve Harper, Kevin Nolan, Wayne Routledge, Danny Simpson, Ryan Taylor, Mike Williamson, Xisco, Fraser Forster, Tim Krul, James Perch, Cheik Tiote, Hatem Ben Arfa.
The list does not include homegrown players under the age of 21, who are still eligible to play for the club this term.
