England's national team faces a bleak future, Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce warned after Wednesday's game between Portsmouth and Arsenal became the first in the top flight not to feature an English player in the starting lineup. “For the national team in the future it is looking very, very bleak,” Allardyce said at a news conference ahead of his team's third-round FA Cup tie against Aston Villa at the weekend. “The Premier League and the FA really need to get together and start immediately on how they are going to address this situation,” Allardyce said Thursday. FIFA President Sepp Blatter has long campaigned for the “Six plus Five rule” which would limit the number of foreign players a team can field, but that rule contravenes European laws and is some way from being implemented. Wednesday's match, which Arsenal won 4-1, featured players from 15 countries among the 22 starters with seven French players on the field. There were two Algerians and one player each from Bosnia, Ireland, Israel, Iceland, South Africa, Scotland, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Wales, Cameroon, Croatia and Russia. There were four English players among the 14 substitutes but only one came on - Arsenal youngster Craig Eastmond who replaced Arsenal's French striker Sami Nasri five minutes from time. The landmark match came almost exactly 10 years after Chelsea became the first English team to field an entirely foreign starting lineup against Southampton on Dec. 26, 1999. Sunderland manager Steve Bruce echoed Allardyce's thoughts at a news conference before his side's FA Cup match against Barrow. “We are not producing players like we used to, for whatever reason. As managers if we can get better value for money in the big wide world then you have to go and try and find them. “We would all love to have an English-based team - every manager would like that if he possibly could, but unfortunately we have not got the quality to do it.” Not everyone was concerned about the lack of English players at Fratton Park. Irishman Roy Keane, Ipswich Town's manager, told a news conference: “It might be a concern for Fabio Capello, the England manager, maybe, but it doesn't keep me awake at night.” Kaka back in action Real Madrid's Brazilian midfielder Kaka touched the ball during a training session Thursday for the first time since he was sidelined at the end of November with a hernia, the Spanish club said. “Kaka appears to have recovered from his sports hernia and today got his first feel for the ball in several weeks. He and Cristiano Ronaldo teamed up during the second half of the session to work on various drills,” the club said in a statement. Real will hold two more training sessions before it faces Osasuna in the league Sunday in Pamplona and it is not yet clear if the 27-year-old will be called up for the squad for that match. The Spanish giant has won all four of its matches in Kaka's absence, leading some in the Spanish media to suggest that Real plays better without the $93.5-million summer signing from AC Milan. But Dutch midfielder Rafael van der Vaart, who has replaced Kaka during his absence, is also in doubt for the match as is Spanish midfielder Guti. Real went into the Christmas break two points behind leader and champion Barcelona in the Primera Liga.
