John Bostock and his problem with the foreign influx

First off, don't worry, John Bostock is not some bigot like Sue was when Gordon Brown interviewed her before eventually losing the general election. Far from it in fact. Bostock is bemoaning the fact that Premiership teams are continuing to sign players from countries outside of England and, as a result, are hindering the chances of players like himself, Jacob Mellis of Chelsea and Matthew James of Manchester United to name a few, making the starting XI of their respective clubs.

To be fair to Bostock, I see where he is coming from. Before signing for Spurs in 2008, Bostock was courted by the likes of Chelsea and Barcelona before settling for the North London outfit. Since this move, Bostock has played a total of 25 minutes of first team football, not enough for a player of immense talent and one hoping to prove himself to Redknapp and the Spurs fairthful. Last season, I went to the Wembley Cup to see Spurs lose 2-0 to Celtic and the only player who actually looked half decent in that dreadful showing was Bostock himself despite only being used as a substitute. I, and many other Spurs fans, were massively excited about a player that is still only 18 years of age yet, Redknapp has so far decided to utilise him sparingly at best. A 3 month loan period for Bostock at Brentford in the second half of last season led to some much needed match time for the youngster with Bostock scoring twice on his debut, once from a corner. This would've just spurred him on further to break into the Tottenham first team as he said himself "I just want to play. The dream is to play for Tottenham, but I want to play." We can all clearly see he is hungry for football and in my opinion, should be given more substitute chances next season ahead of the likes of Jermaine Jenas.

This chance could come sooner rather than later for Bostock et al. as the rules for squad registration in the Premiership has changed for the 2010/11 season. Clubs can now only register 25 players for the season, 8 of these have to have English Nationality whilst 4 of these 8 have to be players the club has bought up through the ranks. For example, with Manchester United Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville would all be part of the 4 players to come through the ranks whilst Rio Ferdinand would be 1 of the 8 as he may be English but was signed from Leeds United and not through the ranks with the club. Those who play Football Manager will know what I'm talking about. This is ideal for players such as Bostock yet two major casualties from this could be Owen Hargreaves of Manchester United and Jonathan Woodgate of Tottenham. Managers don't want to name a player who is unlikely to play any part in there season and with Woodgate only mustering 3 games and Hargreaves around 7.8 seconds last season, both have been given just over 4 weeks to save there season and, potentially, there careers.

This idea for squad registration is a wise one by the FA for the future of English football. This is already utilised in Spanish and Italian football and both nations have won the 2010 and 2006 World Cup respectively so we could be seeing an improvement in English football on a National stage, not straight away, but in the future because the talent is most certainly there as was proved in the Under 19 European Championships where England made it through to the semi finals only to be knocked out by, that's right, Spain.

So, I think Bostock has nothing to worry about in terms of game time because his chance will come. The only thing he should be doing now is knuckling down in training and hoping to impress Redknapp (his goal against Spain will certainly aid his cause).

Right, gotta eat lunch.

Laters,

Macca