Premier League executive chairman Richard Scudamore has insisted that he has no concerns over the development of English players despite the national team's performance at Euro 2016 this summer.
England crashed out in the last 16 of the tournament at the hands of minnows Iceland in a result and performance widely described as among their most embarrassing ever.
However, Scudamore believes that the quality of the players was not the problem and called for perspective by comparing this summer's showing to England's failure to even reach Euro 2008 following a 3-2 defeat to Croatia.
"We did our own post-Euros discussion, and there is nothing we saw that put us off the journey. In other words, we know we're producing good players, we saw nothing that said 'Oh, crikes'," he told reporters.
"Whereas, if you go back to England-Croatia, Steve McClaren and the umbrella, we were so angry we went and got Ged (Roddy, the Premier League's director of football development).
"We said, 'We have to change, we have to change', but we saw nothing in the Euros, either from other teams or from ourselves, quite frankly, that said we have to change the journey."
The new Premier League season gets underway on August 13, with champions Leicester City kicking off the campaign away to Hull City.
Barney Corkhill
