London: England football team head coach Roy Hodgson feels that the shrinking pool of talent he can pick from will continue to get smaller - and expects no sympathy from club managers in terms of their selection policy.
Following the withdrawals of Chelsea duo Ashley Cole and John Terry over the weekend, then Theo Walcott with a virus, Hodgson needed to reinforce his squad ahead of their World Cup qualifier with Ukraine.
Hodgson drafted in Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Jake Livermore and the uncapped Adam Lallana and Raheem Sterling. Only 32 per cent of the players who turned out in the nine Premier League fixtures immediately prior to the current internationals were eligible to play for England.
"We can't deny that," said Hodgson. "Would I prefer to have a reverse of that statistic, with 68 per cent of players being English? Of course I would. But that's not going to happen. The Premier League is fantastic. But it embraces all the top European players," he told reporters.
"Every club manager has only one duty - to his club. We, as England, can't start asking clubs to consider us when they're making decisions about their players.
We just have to hope that the English talent that's being produced - and it will be because we have good academy systems - are still to be considered by their club managers and are good enough," former West Brom boss Hodgson added.
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