Gareth Southgate, manager of England's national soccer team warned his country not to be misled by the Premier League teams' success in the UEFA Champions League or the national team's progress at the 2018 FIFA World Cup because the number of English players in Premier League had already hit a historic low, reported Daily Mail.

According to Daily Mail, only 30 percent of Premier League clubs' starting lineups are home-grown players. That number will drop further to 19.9 percent in the starting units of the league's Big Six teams: Manchester United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

"The big concern for me is that this graph continues to fall away and that we end up in 10 years' time with an England manager who has got 15 percent of the league," Southgate said. 

"Why wouldn't that happen? Because it has dropped 15 percent in the last seven or eight years, so there's no sign of that being arrested because more money coming in, global market. That is a big danger for us."

The England boss has a point. For example, as Premier League's champion team this season, Man City only have two English players in their first-lineup, winger Raheem Sterling and right-back Kyle Walker. The team's captain Vincent Kompany is Belgian, No.1 scorer is Argentinian forward Sergio Agüero, core midfielder Kevin De Bruyne is also Belgian.

Southgate did not think that England does not have enough quality young players. "I was speaking at a Premier League academy event and all those academy managers and coaches live for getting players into the first team. They're doing really good work."

Pressure for good performance could be one of the reasons that English clubs, especially the top ones, were unwilling to use too many home-grown talents. Man City only won the league title after the last day; Liverpool and Hotspur both made the Champions League Final via epic comebacks; such intense competitions meant that top teams could not afford to take any risk. By the way, the number of the world's best players is limited, if English clubs don't buy them, there will be clubs from other countries introducing them for improvement.

England's youth development in soccer won great praise at the 2018 World Cup in Russia while other countries that had been known for developing young talents, namely Germany and Spain, saw a shortage of quality young blood. Southgate did not think that advantage can last long.

"When things are going well it is a good time to review it, and keep improving; not to sit back, either as a league or a national federation and think, 'OK, it's all going well.' Because those Germans, they will be doing stuff, they're out looking at how they get better."