Despite themselves for years it's been any decent English prospect = world class. Great white hope syndrome.
If he was black or French he'd be classed as promising but unproven.
Mangala is black, French, and had nowhere near the potential of Stones, yet cost us £42m. Pogba is also black and French and has a similar potential (imagine how good Stones would look in Serie A...) and we are told he's an £80m footballer. Taking into account the amount United paid for Martial, I think it's pretty clear that being 'black and/or French' means absolute premium rate.
problem is though its going to far the other way, people have the attitude now english players aren't any good, when in fact players like stones are more than good enough for us
That's the thing, people don't actually look at it subjectively; we've done very well with English players in the past few years. Hart is as good as any goalkeeper in Europe and hasn't even peaked yet; Delph is the latest who'll substantially contribute over the next few years, and he cost half of what Javi Garcia did.
One issue English football has is top clubs harbouring foreign mediocrity; Bertrand is better than both our leftbacks, Stones would be a first choice here now, despite being years away from our peak. Eric Dier already plays the anchor role with more class and intelligence than our Brazilian 'star' Fernando; he's like a bigger, more mobile version of Gareth Barry, with an identical passing game. Since Barkley has taken a step back into a more orthodox midfield 3 for Everton this season he looks special again; he's got all of the tools to replace Toure here eventually.
Even Rodwell looked quality when he did play for us under Mancini; people base their ignorant views on Scott Sinclair, one player who looked completely out of his depth but only cost us a few million anyway.
The talent pool for England from the age of 20 downwards is frightening; we are on the verge of being a European superpower internationally, but to accelerate the process we need more of our young players to be shown by the biggest clubs.
