In England the international break is now often met with a fair amount of disdain due to the national team's apparent decline. While any hiatus from the Premier League has never really been welcomed the Three Lions' uninspiring form has left many a fan largely disinterested in the side.
Although little appears to be different as Roy Hodgson's men prepare to face qualifiers against Moldova and a crunch match in Ukraine, the performances of a number of young players have caught the eye in the fledgling stages of the 2013/14 Premier League to suggest that there may be some signs of promise on the horizon.
Indeed, the manager's selection of the likes of Ross Barkley and Andros Townsend certainly stood out after the pair made a fine start to the season, with both making WhoScored.com's top rated English XI thus far.
When excluding players to have retired from the international scene that eleven lines up as follows.
In goal Ben Foster gets the nod with a rating of 7.50 and may well have put pressure on Joe Hart's number one spot had it not been for a foot injury sustained during a man of the match performance at Everton.
There would certainly be a strong argument for a back four of Johnson (7.70), Cahill (7.15), Jagielka (7.34) and Baines (7.63) to have started the upcoming qualifiers were it not for a knee injury the former sustained against United at the weekend. The latter has picked up where he left off last season, with no player making more key passes (10), while no full-back has made more tackles than Jonhson after three games (12).
It's the midfield that is undoubtedly the most interesting. Villa's Fabian Delph (7.74) partners captain Steven Gerrard (7.85) having finally begun to fulfill the early promise that earned him a big money move the Premier League from Leeds. The 23-year old ranks among the top 10 players for tackles (4.3), interceptions (4) and dribbles (3.7) per game to date, while Gerrard has made the 7th most passes (208).
The aforementioned Townsend (7.72) and Barkley (7.51) are joined in an extremely youthful attacking triumvirate by Norwich newboy Nathan Redmond (7.96), who has completed the most dribbles in the league thus far (14) and opened his Canaries account at the weekend. The fact that the teenager missed out whiile out of favour Liverpool winger Raheem Sterling made the grade may have been one of Hodgson's biggest oversights.
Up front Daniel Sturridge has been one of the stars of the season thus far, picking up a rating of 7.47 having scored the winning goal in each of Liverpool's three 1-0 wins this season. In turn he's the joint top scorer in the league, so an injury that will keep him out of the Moldova game at the very least is poorly timed as far as Roy Hodgson and the dwindling England faithful are concerned.
Though he may not be able to rely on all of our XI due to injuries - or having overlooked the likes of Delph and Redmond - the average age of that side is encouraging. Only Jagielka (31) and Gerrard (33) are over the age of thirty, with the average of the side sitting at 25.9.
When you look at the average age of the respective best XIs from both Spain and Germany - who are widely considered to be the real powerhouses of Europe - there is even more reason for hope. Four games into the new Bundesliga season the average age of the German XI is only slightly lower at 25.5, with many claiming that the model of bleeding young talent in Europe’s fastest growing league is one that England's top-flight must follow.
Our Spanish eleven has an average age of 27.4 in comparison, though the average rating of that side is a superb 8.00 and a considerable way ahead of the German (7.61) and English (7.60) XIs. The World and European champions familiar line-up is ageing a little, but with the displays Isco, Thiago, Illarramendi and co. at the recent European Under-21 championships there's little reason for fans of la Roja to fear.
England still have a very long way to go to reach such standards, and a three-match sample is obviously extremely small. Whether the current top performances can sustain such a level for a prolonged period is of course the key. There is, however, a glimmer of hope that didn't appear to be there this time last year with very few youngsters coming to the fore. The current crop may not be world-beaters - far from it as it stands - but there's little doubt that a changing of the guard is needed if England are to progress. Now may well be the right time with a potential World Cup campaign approaching.
