BEST OF BRITISH

If the ruling was brought in tomorrow with only five foreigners allowed, Liverpool would struggle to put out a competitive team.
Let's presume UK players could count within the six (ie Wales, Scotland and Ireland allowed), we'd probably line up something like this:
Reina, Finnan, Carragher, Skrtel, Aurelio, Pennant, Gerrard, Guthrie, Kuyt, Torres, Crouch.

Nothing to speak of on the bench is there? Hobbs and the reserve keeper Martin. I've never seen him play. Hope he's not another Charlie The Tang.
It's a sad state of affairs in reality as I'm sure The Kop would love nothing more than to roar on a Woolton winger, Fazakerley centre forward or show their approval towards a Norris Green centre half.
The nurturing of young British talent has been woefully neglected over the last 15 years in England.
It must grate for some of the Liverpool kids who dream every night about playing at Anfield and signing professional terms, only to see some foreign unheard of walking into Melwood.
Mediocre overseas recruits too - I can't see how Ferri, Cheyrou, Diao, Josemi, Nunez, Meijer, Itandje, Sissoko, Gonzalez, Kvarme and countless others had something over and above some of our local Scouse youngsters, given time.
We would have saved millions in transfer fees and wages into the bargain.

How about the example of Pongolle and Le Tallec. Two French kids coveted by a welter of Europe's top clubs.
Liverpool's persistance prevailed, Alex Ferguson even made a point of congratulating Houllier on his double Gallic coup.
What was all the fuss about? Le Tallec has delievred pretty much nothing - is he a striker or a midfielder? Nobody can tell.
Pongolle is a half decent player who'll do well at a middling side. I've got a soft spot for his energy and the way he dragged us out the mire in that epic FA Cup tie at Luton a couple of years ago.
But he's not the world beater we were led to believe who would terrorise the Premiership in a few years time.
Again, hyped up foreign players at the expense of Liverpool homegrown talent who'd no doubt turn out for the club for £100 a week if it came down to it.
Let's hope Nemeth, currently looking very impressive banging goals in for the reserves is a different kettle of fish.
A look at Liverpool's reserves is interesting. The usual line up consists of Dean Bouzanis, Péter Gulácsi, Mikel San José, Emiliano Insua, Daniel Ayala, Miki Roque, Godwin Antwi and Sebastián Leto.
The reserve side used to be the natural breeding ground from where local talent was sprung. There's barely a Scouse accent there.
There's some talent, but I can't imagine many of those progressing as first team regulars.
Against that argument, you could probably say that Liverpool's reserve side WAS predominantly English around five years ago.
That famous Carling Cup win at Spurs was achieved with the likes of Raven, Partridge and the others. They had their chance to line up alongisde Gerrard and Co, but it seemed they couldn't quite make the grade.
But then our youth policy, from the scouting through to the training and development, doesn't seem to have been the same since the halcyon days of Fowler, Owen Carragher and Gerrard.

This state of affairs impacts massively on the British game and the performance of the national side.
Not that every or many Liverpool fans cares. The Reds faithful are well known for their indifference to the success of England at major championships.
Of course, there's a reason why managers have turned to unheard of foreigners to flood our game.
Money.
Or the inflated value placed on English players by greedy managers. Martin O'Neill anyone?
Gary Cahill for £4m? Crouch worth £15m? Milner being touted around at £10m. They are worth around half that in my book.
If you're lucky and you've got an astute manager in the transfer market like Arsene Wenger and you can spot Euro gems for peanuts (Fabregas, Flamini, Hleb, Clichy etc) then you probably don't give two hoots if they're screaming Moroccan and Malian on the pitch.
But as much as we turn people like Sami, Riise, Kuyt and Hysen into honorary Scousers, it would be refreshing to hear a screaming defender (other than Carra) imploring his colleagues: "Let's have a red 'ead on this eh?!'
Some foreign stars are great and their influence can enrich our game. Zola and Vialli for Chelsea suddenly made the Premiership sexy.
A Danish Molby was the best passer we'd seen at Anfield for years, perhaps Anfield's greatest passer.
And the technique of Alonso and Garcia and the discipline of Hyppia and Henchoz taught our kids a lot.
But it's gone too far.
Can anyone honestly say what we've learnt from the lovable El Hadji Diouf other than how to grock in someone's eye?