Stuart Pearce has been complaining this week that he doesn't have many potential England Under 21 players to look at in the Premiership. Apparently he had to go to see Southampton at home to Stoke to look at some talent, which is a bit rough.

"It hit me looking at the fixtures and how many players were worth me going to watch," psycho said. "Is it worth me going to see Liverpool? There's no one on show. Chelsea? No. Manchester United? I'd like to say there are three players in every team worth watching. That would be utopia for me. It's not all doom and gloom but we have to be aware of it."

Trevor Brooking recently noted that on the first Premiership weekend back in 1992. This season that's down to 37%, most of which play for smaller clubs.

I've never been one of those little Englanders bemoaning the number of foreigners in the Premiership. But maybe now is the time to bring in a mandatory quota, so that Premiership clubs have to field a minimum number of English players.

I've heard the 5+6 idea mentioned before, where at least 5 of every team's starting 11 must be English. Would be great for the England team, but it's too much too soon. The top clubs would never go for it, and there'd be an immediate impact on the quality of football and on Premiership teams ability to compete in Europe.

But if we started small, this is something that could be realistic. I'd favour mandating that at least two of the starting eleven must be English, or at least four of the matchday 16. It wouldn't have a huge immediate impact, but it would at least guarantee no more Arsenal teams being fielded with no Englishmen in them at all.

Most big clubs already have at least two starters who are English. Man Utd have Scholes, Hargreaves, Ferdinand and Neville. Chelsea have Terry, Ashley Cole and Lampard, Liverpool have Gerrard and Carragher. So there'd be no short term damage. But a two English player minimum would at least ensure that we never drop below current levels.