WHAT would the Premiership be without Zola, Henry, Vieira and Bergkamp?

A pale shadow of itself, yet the rising trend within English football suggests our love affair with foreign imports is over.

Steve McClaren is leading the way at Middlesbrough with three British big money buys in the transfer window and the declaration that he wants an English team.

Buying British has become a thing of the past in recent years, but it is back in fashion with 12 of the 16 January Premiership transfers, for which money changed hands, being for home grown talent.

McClaren has had enough of problems with foreigners and has come out and admitted: "I want to build a club around a core of English players."

At Newcastle, Sir Bobby Robson is trying to sway the balance back towards a national influence in his championship-chasing team, the interesting comment on the arrival of England's biggest January transfer, £9 million Jonathan Woodgate, being: "He's English and that helps."

There was a time when almost every transfer seemed to be a foreign import which has left a situation in which Premiership teams are crammed full of non-Brits.

It works when the players are as gifted as Zola and Bergkamp, who have enhanced our game and rightly become Premiership legends.

But for every one of those there are ten nondescript foreign squad fillers who are only here because they are cheaper to buy and pay than British players.

These are the players who keep home-grown talent rotting in the reserves and leave the England national team short of quality in depth.

This desire among clubs to buy British again is one example of the game appears to be longing for a switch back to traditional values.

The practice of aggressive tackling, a dying art in an English game which has become obsessed with technique, should be encouraged according to Sam Allardyce. An uncompromising tackler as a player himself, the Wanderers boss was outlining the qualities of one of his recent transfer targets - a player pretty much in his own image - and said it was a shame that the physical side of the game was being driven out.

Two other Premiership bosses, Glenn Roeder and Gordon Strachan, lamented that managers can no longer give players "a good rollicking" because today's stars are too soft, sensitive and well paid that they can afford, and are only too willing, to respond negatively to being told off.

It is worth noting that all the managers hankering after a change back towards traditional ways are British and maybe it is a sign of a budding split between them and the likes of Houllier, Wenger and Ranieri.