Steve McClaren believes Dele Alli is at the vanguard of bright British talent set to emerge from the lower divisions in the next few years. Newcastle United’s manager has been fathoming out ways of subduing Alli’s creative powers at Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday but also reflecting on what might have been.
Last January Newcastle thought they had secured a £5m deal for Alli only for his transfer from MK Dons, then in League One, to be hijacked by Spurs. McClaren was in charge of Derby County at the time but, having considered making a bid for the midfielder, knew all about Alli. “He’s very good,” McClaren said. “I watched him at MK Dons and we talked at Derby about trying to get him.”
McClaren has been delighted to see the 19-year-old break into the England squad and said there are other homegrown players in the Football League capable of representing their country. “One of the things I enjoyed most about my time at Derby was seeing all the young players coming through in the Championship,” he said.
“There are people down there in the lower divisions who, a bit like Charlie Austin and Jamie Vardy, can make it. Players like Watford’s Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney and Bournemouth’s Callum Wilson are proving the Championship is producing some good players. It’s a completely different league from 10 years ago. It was tough then but it’s very tough now and good footballers are coming out of it.”
That may be but Premier League managers and directors of football still often prefer to recruit from abroad. “I think it will turn,” McClaren said. “I think already the big development in recruitment is looking lower down [the divisions] but Premier League clubs are also nurturing players from much younger ages now.
“They’re looking at under-16, under-15 and under-14 teams. Since I’ve come back into this country from working in the Netherlands [at Twente] that’s the biggest development I’ve seen. Clubs are nurturing kids from age seven, eight and nine and bringing them all the way through. I think it’s a great development and good for the game.”
The only thing holding back a flood of homegrown talent is the shortage of high-calibre junior coaches in England. “The football talent is out there in this country,” McClaren said. “We just need the coaches to develop it. That’s the biggest difference from Holland. The coaches over there – at under seven, eight, nine and 10 levels are very good – and specialists at coaching specific age groups.”
He suspects part of the problem in England is that the egos of too many coaches prevent them from being content to operate at junior levels.
“In Holland, coaches accept the natural progression from working with under-nines all the way up to the first team,” he said. “That’s difficult [to implement] here. I think we probably have difficulty in settling into coaching our under-10s first and then building and growing through the different levels.”
With Mauricio Pochettino’s team constructed around a nucleus of British youngsters, Spurs appear ahead of the curve. “They’ve got a sprinkling of foreign imports alongside the English players and they’re doing very well,” McClaren said. “They’ve got a good balance.”
