Picture the scenes outside Pride Park on 10 March 1999. Michael Oakes in a donkey jacket holding, with his fingerless-gloved hands, a placard emblazoned with the cross of St George and chanting as the Aston Villa team bus pulled up: "English goalkeeping berths for English custodians! English goalkeeping berths for English custodians!" Of course this didn't happen, but it might have if Oakes had known that Villa's previous fixture, a 4-1 defeat at home to Coventry, would be the last time an English top-flight club would field a team consisting entirely of England-qualified players.
It is 10 years to the day since Oakes lined up behind Alan Wright, Gareth Southgate, Steve Watson, Riccardo Scimeca, Ian Taylor, Paul Merson, Simon Grayson, Lee Hendrie, Dion Dublin and Julian Joachim. Even the three subs used by John Gregory that day were past or future England internationals, or Mark Draper – a young Gareth Barry, a declining Stan Collymore and Draper (who did, to give him his due, win three under-21 caps).
But alas, since then foreign footballers have been infiltrating "the world's greatest football league" like fleet-footed, specialist Italian construction staff at a Welsh oil refinery, and in the 3,801 Premier League matches played since, not one of the 7,602 teams named has been 100% English. Steve McClaren went close in his last game in charge at Middlesbrough, naming a 16-man squad that featured 15 academy players; however, James Morrison has since declared for Scotland.
This season just 185 of the 492 players to have appeared in the Premier League are English, a mere 37.6%. The Institute for European Affairs yesterday released an independent report saying that Fifa's proposed 6+5 rule is not in contravention of European law. Unfortunately for Sepp Blatter, and the five professors of European law who drew up the report, the European Commission pretty swiftly knocked back Fifa's plan, releasing a statement hours later saying that limiting the number of foreign players who can start a match is, in their view, not compatible with the European Union's strict labour laws governing the free movement of workers.
But are the green shoots of recovery visible without the intervention of Blatter and his blather? Can English football self-regulate itself better than the financial markets? Where would we look for signs that there are English places for English players?
Liverpool, perhaps, with their record number of league titles and history of producing courageous and committed England internationals in the mould of Steven Gerrard? Not so much, seeing as Gerrard and Jamie Carragher, along with the now-jettisoned Jermaine Pennant, are the only Englishmen to turn out for the Reds in the Premier League this season – just 13% of their 23 players, the lowest representation in the league. Not Arsenal's Franco-African nursery (17%), nor Chelsea's expensively assembled league of nations (25%), and not even at Old Trafford where such players as Gary Neville, Wayne Rooney and Rio Ferdinand mean United can boast more than one third of their players are born-and-bred (34%).
No, it is Aston Villa – where it all ended – where English dominance is being restored. Fourteen of the 19 players used by Martin O'Neill in the league this season have been English, a whopping 74% – Brad Friedel, Stilian Petrov, John Carew, Martin Laursen and Carlos Cuéllar being the immigrants. Five foreigners, within the number deemed fair and equitable by Fifa.
