Changing Times as Premier League Hits 25

Last updated : 08 August 2017 By Three Lions

The media is awash this week with articles on how much the game in England has changed during that quarter of a century, many of them pulling together their Dream XI’s and best goals from the past 25 years.

Has the unstoppable growth of the Premier League, however, been good for the national team?

There is no doubt that one of the original reasons given for the breakaway of 22 clubs from the Football League, and one of the factors why the Football Association gave their backing to it, has long since ceased to be a priority if indeed it ever was.

1996 was set to be the year that the top-flight would reduce to 18 teams, fewer matches being of benefit to England and avoid the ‘burn-out’ that was said to affect the national team when it came to major championships at the end of a long season with too many games and no winter break.

It never came to pass, of course, and although there have been some moves on fixtures, such as the scrapping of replays in the later stages of the FA Cup, these have been done more with the needs of the big clubs in mind as they (try to) negotiate the final rounds of the Champions League or gather their thoughts for a title challenge.

The data also points to a reducing pool of players appearing regularly in the top division for the England manager to choose his squads from but, with first-team football harder to come by than ever, is the quality of those players who do break through better than was on offer to Graham Taylor back in 1992?

We missed out on the 1994 World Cup and, although our record at major finals continues to disappoint, qualification for those tournaments has been very straightforward over the past decade or so.