Sam Allardyce seems to blame ‘foreign players’ for England not winning Euro 2024

Sam Allardyce thinks England did “exceptionally well” to get to the Euro 2024 final considering the “small” talent pool of players in the Premier League.

Despite several lacklustre displays at Euro 2024, Gareth Southgate led England to just their third major men’s final appearance and first on foreign soil only to suffer a disappointing 2-1 defeat to Spain on Sunday .

England have one of the most talented group of players in world football at their disposal but ex-Three Lions boss Allardyce is still concerned about English talent coming through because of an increase in foreign players in the Premier League.

When asked on Good Morning Britain to build on his thoughts that young English talent is blocked by foreign players, Allardyce replied : “Oh absolutely. You have to remember that we’ve got the strongest, the biggest football league in the world. It creates more revenue, it creates more interest than anything else, apart from international tournaments, of course.

“In terms of creating money this is where everyone wants to be, in the Premier League, so when you end up with the vast majority of the Premier League’s players being foreign, then you’ve got a big problem when it comes to putting your youngsters in the side and finding the youngsters to come through that are English to play for England.

“And of course when you look at the academies today, they are ever more growing with young foreign players now from the age of 16.

“So, we are never going to change that, that’s the way it is but we must try and do more to try and get our youngsters into football clubs and through the football club system and into the national team.

“So I think we’ve done exceptionally well with the squad of players we have at the moment, considering the talent pool is quite small.”

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Former England defender John Terry thinks Southgate should stay despite criticism of his tactics and team selections during Euro 2024.

Southgate’s future will now be the subject of intense speculation with his contract due to expire in December but the man himself was giving nothing away in the aftermath in Berlin.

Terry added: “I’m still happy with what Gareth has done with this group of players.

“I think the way he has them playing is excellent at the moment and I think the togetherness is the biggest thing, which we didn’t have.

“I think Sam will agree that in my generation, we didn’t have the togetherness that Gareth’s done. So I hope he stays.”