There are legit concerns that the Champions League is where it's at, and that you need testing against the best at club level and you won't get that playing for Man City (much as I love him, I'd be nervous about an England team feat Micah Richards against the likes of Kaka or Riquelme just now). But it's also partly a product of celeb culture, to some extent, and perhaps managerial cowardice - you don't look so stupid if your flop striker was deemed worthy of £10m by one of the best mangers in the country.
Problem with all these 'top' Champions League players is they bring that cautious culture with them. England played these games with a fair measure of freedom. On top of that, when you have to be a Top Four player to be in the England team, it breeds the complacent comfort zone attitude that has been so endemic, esp under Sven.
Some good points here. I realize that the Champions League is tremendously lucrative, a great stage and certainly a priority for many (Rafa Benítez, step forward) but are there enough English players getting regular Champions League action to make up a national squad? Somewhere along the line you must be reasonable and choose players on form, and, as IdleRich says, leaving out someone like Darren Bent who does not have the quality of service other strikers have and still performs is criminal negligence.
I mean, if your job is to nominate an England squad on the basis of names only, any 8 year old can do that in a flash. And if the pressure on an England coach to get things right is strong, imagine what the Brazil coach must feel each time he announces the team sheet. And here's Dunga picking young players that ply their trade in the Russian and Ukranian leagues, simply because he feels thay are going to do the best job. Sure, CSKA Moscow and Shakhtar Donetsk might play in the Champions League qualifying stages some years, but most of their league matches are not even Championship level.
I think that if a coach has a consistent policy of naming only the hungriest and most in-form players, regardless of names, hierarchy, history and the media, his success will speak for itself and he will be vindicated.