Was Stuart Pearce right to allude to “apathy” of Oxlade-Chamberlain & others?

The big story of the day revolves around comments made by former England U21 manager Stuart Pearce, who has accused Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Phil Jones (among others) of being apathetic for turning down the opportunity to represent the Young Lions at the European Championships in Israel. Pearce believes that a lack of interest in representing the team ultimately lead to the side’s poor performance in the competition. “England turned up at a major tournament without six or seven, I think there were eight players with senior caps, who could have played [at the Euros]. “The odd one was injury, but apathy played a big part – the Oxlade-Chamberlains of this world, the Phil Joneses, because they didn’t want to come. Once they go through the ivory towers of the seniors they don’t want to play with the U21s. “There is no nation in the world that could suffer that. Our boys, for whatever reason, be it the power of the Premier League, the finance they get at such a young age, whatever it may be, there is a lack of real passion to want to play for your country no matter what. We have to solve that problem and give them international experience. An unhappy Stuart Pearce The FA then quickly moved to express its disappointment with Pearce’s comments, saying in an official statement that “It is unfair to criticise individual players,” and that ”All selections were management decisions and were not taken by individual players.” Pearce’s comments clearly originate from increased frustration over the failure of the U21 team at the Euro’s, which ultimately cost him a job. England came bottom of Group A, losing to Italy, Norway and Israel and scoring only 1 goal. However, I do think that it is particularly unfair to single out certain players for a “lack of passion”. The timing of the comments is particularly interesting. Pearce’s outburst follows a poor senior performance against Ukraine last night, after which it was suggested that a number of senior players could benefit from more time developing in non-senior international teams. A fair few pundits have been quick to point out that players like the aforementioned Oxlade-Chamberlain & Jones (as well as others such as Jack Wilshere, Ross Barkley, Jonjo Shelvey) have not spent that much time with the U21′s before earning their call-up’s for the senior squad. My thoughts/suggestions A major problems that England U21′s face is that a lot of top clubs put pressure on their younger players not to play too much additional football where it can be avoided. This is done for a variety of reasons, including (but limited to): 1. Clubs want to protect their players and ensure that they don’t suffer unnecessary injuries. 2. I am pretty sure that Arsenal did not want Oxlade-Chamberlain or Wilshere (or United with Jones, Liverpool with Sterling etc…) to play for the U21′s in Israel if they are also going to be away next summer at the World Cup. That will only lead to burnout. 3. International commitments cut in to time that these young players could/should be spending on pre-season training with their clubs. There is a big problem with split alliances between the U21 and senior team. Players can be in both squads at the same time, which complicates things because that means major tournaments every year. The FA should make it clear that players can play for either one or the other, and not chop and change when it’s convenient. A lack of consistency in the senior team means that the advantages of playing together for the U21′s are often overlooked. If you look at other successful countries such as Germany and Spain, they are very much focused on getting younger players used to playing with each other before they move up to senior team, whether it be with U19′s, U20′s or U21′s. These young players then come up to main team in groups rather than gradually. We don’t really do that in England. If you’re vaguely decent, the senior team awaits pretty quickly.