Ince wants to keep Bentley. Chelsea will not discuss with Inter about Lampard. Madrid’s door to Ronaldo looks to have been bolted and shut by United.

I guess this is where long-term contracts actually work. I was of the feeling that Lampard was out-of-contract but it appears his contract ramblings was about an improvement to his existing one. You also have English players signing 9-year-deals because it’s just near impossible to break a contract worth at least 5 years. (Anelka broke his 4-year Bolton contract he signed at the start of last season to move to Chelsea in the winter).

It took Heysel for English players to move abroad in the 90s. There was also a good spread of English players plying their trade in Europe before that too. Nowadays you never see a decent English player playing outside of their own league. Not even in Scotland. Instead you have the likes of Lee Naylor and Andrew Driver, and even there, the former’s been left in the cold because Celtic is being linked to a whole host of good left-backs this summer, the latter has expressed a desire to change nationality to Scotland.

I predict a cruel future for English football. FIFA and UEFA will pass legislations that will hurt the Premier League more than other clubs. Champions League money will be cut for English teams. Even next season, I can see only two English teams through to the last 16 of the CL group stages. England will continue to be disappointing in the international stage. They will drop to lower than 14th in the FIFA world rankings, enough for a record lowest ever. England’s World Cup bid will fail again.

This is not saying I hate English football. I agree that it is overrated, but it doesn’t mean it warrants any sort of hate-talk from me. I still watch it every week, I still support almost every team playing in it, but I want a change in scenery – all for the good of the English game.

Pundits and the media over here and similarly in England itself do not want the best players to move away from the Premier League, because of the selfish opinion that they want to see them week in, week out. Most of the leavers are the “failures” like Hernan Crespo, Diego Forlan, Mark Gonzalez, Zvonimir Vukic etc. You can now add Jon Arne Riise and Harry Kewell to that list. Then you have the people who took forever to leave like Henry. Or it takes a bust-up with the manager, like Stam, Becks and van Nistelrooy.

Besides that there are so many culminating factors as to why English players are unwanted in Europe. Harsh media. Language barrier. Wages. Or simply just a lack of talent and finesse or tactical strategy.

Seriously, I’m tired to talking about English players and coaches needing to move out. If this trend continues, England fans and the media will still bawl and sulk about why their national team is suffering, writing inflammatory comments here and there, clinging on to their indispensable heroes and obsolete football values and the like.

Nothing in the England game will ever improve…

Dutch youngster Marvin Emnes has moved to Middlesbrough for a 4-year-deal from Sparta Rotterdam.

More often than not, Dutch youngsters these days fail to live to expectations in the Premier League. Over the years, Dutch players have served in England well enough, you not only have some great names plying their trade for English teams like Bergkamp and van Nistelrooy but even lesser yet solid names like Arjan de Zeeuw, Mark de Vries, Martijn Reuser, just to name a few.

However the recent disappontments of Maceo Rigters at Blackburn, Rachid Bouaouzan at Wigan and Daniel de Ridder at Birmingham have caused concern for similar lads hailing from one of the Low Countries. The Netherlands’ youth system had been praised for developing footballers starting virtually from the day they walk. They may be exceptional youths, but do they have the ability to break through the first teams of the clubs they’re at?

Exciting Dutch talent is still abound in the reserves of Premier League clubs, getting farmed out every now and then. Newcastle’s Tim Krul had a solid season at Falkirk last season, it will only be a matter of time before he truly takes over from long servants Shay Given and Steve Harper between the posts at St James’ Park. I watched his one first-team game, a UEFA Cup fixture against Palermo, and he was quite outstanding.

Another player I’d like to see more of is Arsenal’s Nacer Barazite, although there’s less chances of Arsenal youngsters breaking through these days unless you’re a nippy, intelligent Spaniard… (yes I’m electing Fran Merida to be the next Arsenal hotshot). However we have the League Cup for them to play in, and Barazite did not look out of sorts in those games.

Perhaps they need to wait for quite awhile before getting a chance? Ask Orlando Engelaar who’s poised to join Hamburg – a senior international debut at 27. Honestly I would like to know more of him since he dislodged a favourite of mine, Denny Landzaat, from the Dutch squad.

So I don’t expect Emnes to be playing for Boro’s first team for a long time – perhaps a loan move to a lower-league club would be beneficial for him, as did yet another Dutch young striker, West Brom’s Sherjill MacDonald, last season.