So with circati's parma now confirmed of promotion and likely Burgess, Luongo, Melcalfe and Irvine also, when was the last time we had 5 or more players playing at the 'Golden' standard of Top 5 league/ CL club? 

There was one season think it was 18/19 when we had Mooy and Ryan at prem, sainsbury, behich and Holland champions league, albeit sainsbury and behich were bench players. Can't think of last time we had 5 or more bona-fide starters though. 

Although we should be cautious

Valeri was the club captain and didnt see game time the following season. There is always a risk some players might be replaced

Also ipswich need a draw or for leeds to drop points. 8 in 9 chance of going up but not certain yet

If all 5 start i suspect this is our best since 09?

In the period 2003 to 2008 there was Kewell and Viduka at Leeds.,Emerton at Blackburn,Schwarzer at Middlesborough,Cahill at Everton and Lazaridis at Birmingham City.So in that period we had at least six players in the EPL for most of the seasons .

Yeah I agree, especially in the case of the Ipswich lads. If they go up, Ipswich will definitely have to strengthen given they were only in League One last season.

More.. at the 06 WC we had

                        Schwarzer (epl)
Emo(epl) Moore(epl)  Neill (epl)  Chippers (CL) 
                  Grella (Serie a) Culina (CL)
Bresh (Serie A)  Cahill (epl)    Kewell (epl)
                            Viduka (epl) 
Kalac (serie a) 
Skoko (epl)
Sterjovski (CL) 
Kennedy (Bundi) 
Wilkshire (league 1) 
Popa (epl)
Archie (CL) 

The entire squad bar Wilkshire was top 5 or champions league. Unbelievable times. This was def our peak as a national pool, before it slowly started declining from around 2009 onwards when kewell and Neill went to gala, dukes retired and Skoko and Culina returned home. 

True. Any of Luongo, Circati, luongo and metcalfe could get upgraded on. Think Irvine is safe being captain and talisman of the team. 

Actually I've forgotten Volpato (might get relegated but might seal a move back up), Robertson (still on city's books), Souttar and irakunda but all of them unlikely to be playing many games. 

Just checked the 2018 squad.. we had 6 starters at top 5 leagues or champions league sides..

Mooy
Jedinak 
Leckie 
Ryan 
Vukovic 
Rogic 

So I think next season should be the most since that time. Perhaps volpato, irakunda, souttar, Robertson and or mcgree can add to the 5 next season 

Forgot about Deni Genreau (ligue 1), Mo Toure (ligue 1) and Hrustic (free agent end of season).. the first 2 will prob continue to be bench warmers but Hrustic might get picked up by a lower serie a or bundi team now he's fully fit and in form again.  

Burgess and Luongo are ironed on starters at Ipswich, don't worry.

Teams that go up spend the sugar money on strikers

There's quite a few more too but none of them really count. 

Who are the others? 

I can only think of Peupion, Gauci and Italiano.. all of which won't play a single match, save for maybe Gauci in case of injury 

Unfortunately Irvine is exactly the kind of player who is upgraded out when a team is promoted  - solid at second tier but not up to elite standard. At 32 his age will count against him too. If her wash good enough for the bundesliga he would have played there but now. 

He's their captain though and goal threat from midfield and set pieces. Highly doubt they will replace him. 

St Pauli are less likely the club to bring in the expensive exotics from Brazil and Spain. If it were Hamburg or Hoffenheim then I'd be more concerned. 

Exactly not going to happen he's close to first name on the team sheet. Metcalfe on the other hand regularly gets rotated so chance he may drop out. 

People need to also realise it's a campaign. St Pauli manage their squad smartly. Leicester's manager has a fear of a cliff so there wasn't much rotation. They won in the end but if the shakes keep going teams need to have the reserves to also help out. 

He won't be a goal threat in the Bundesliga. It's a ruthless business. Irvine is technically limited and is turning 32. I hope he makes the transition, but the odds are against him. 

We could potentially have 6 for next season, Genreau I think is still injured so im sure about him but at least we should have 5 which is great.

Overall we need alot more players playing in T5 and even leagues that in the top 10 leagues such as the Eredivisie, the Portuguese league etc whom are seen as strong leagues and stepping stones towards that level.

Nothing against the Scottish league but their level is not strong enough compared to those leagues where the quality is more higher, the championship is a good level but it doesn't have the exposure to continental competitors such as the champions league, Europa and Conference league.

So if we can get more players in T5 leagues and rest of the best outside of the T5 then the quality of the national team will only get stronger going into international tournaments such as the World Cup where the level of exposure will be very high so you need players that could keep up with the level.

I count Luongo (EPL), Burgess (EPL), Gauci (EPL) Circati (Serie A), Irvine (Bundesliga), Metcalfe (Bundesliga), Irankunda (Bundesliga), Genreau (Ligue 1) who have a good chance of some game time. Volpato maybe too if he moves. Souttar also in the EPL next season but suspect he'll move on or not play

In youth set-ups/likely on loan from big 5 leagues included G. Kuol (EPL), Peupion (EPL), Robertson (EPL), Trefiletti (Serie A) Esposito (Serie A), Pavlesic (Bundesliga), Mohamed Toure (La Liga). I've probably missed a few here. 

Players in other notable European leagues likely to include McGree, Yengi, Silvera, Glover, Elder and possibly Jack Iredale and Jones (all Championship) Ryan, Hrustic (both Eredivisie), O'Neill, Bos (both Jupiler Lig), Mabil, Laws, Chipperfield (all Swiss Super League). 

A lot of players playing at good levels atm. 

Although this is  good news on the face of it, teams promoted to the top tier often recruit new players in the off season. Some of the previous  regulars the season  before are not first eleven starting players anymore.

For the Socceroos from what I've seen in performances to date I think Burgess is not quite as  good a CB as Souttar, Rowles and Circati, are for the Socceroos, with Courtney-Perkins excelling in the Qatar Olympic qualifiers. Yet in clubland Cameron B may be playing as CB in the highest rated club where Aussies play. 

Moreover, Souttar, who I rate as possibly our top Socceroo CB, has a club coach who rates him far  lower than Arnie probably does. I think the season before under Brendan Rodgers, Souttar was a starter in the EPL. This season with the same club he hasn't been able to get into the same team playing Championship football.

Finally, club coaches can change very quickly in the Big Five. Three loses in a row and some coaches get sacked. A new coach arrives with different ideas about the same players.

I just can't see Circati being cut after this season even if it's the higher division. If he's in demand as it's claimed then he needs to line up potential moves with as little noise a possible and go somewhere he'll play every week. Let Parma risk a silly mistake.

As a corollary to this, I'd contend that there are circa 40 Big Clubs in UEFA who  outside the Big Five Leagues who are just as good or better than the lower and even mid ranked Big Five  clubs on the table. Porto, Benfica, Sporting Lisbon, Ajax, Feyenoorde, PSV Eind, Anderlecht, Standard  Leige, Young Boys, Grasshoppers, AEK Athens, Celtic, et al.  They play a lot of tight match  tournament scenarios where one bad result can lead to an exit with 6 home and away games against intra-continental UEFA  clubs.

Teams outside the Big Five leagues who constantly play in Champ League and  Europa League comps season in season out. This includes the big Portuguese, Dutch, Belgian, Swiss, Turkish, Greek clubs, and before the war in Ukraine, Russian  and Ukrainian clubs, maybe even  Celtic in Scotland? 

O'Neill is playing at Standard Liege, a Big Club in Belgium.

Degenek has recently played at Red Star Belgrade. 

Not sure of Hrustic's current Dutch club? Ryan is playing at a pretty big Dutch club too. 

Looks like leckie mooy and ryan got substantial game time at the same time before the 2018 world cup. So if four players start regularly that is the best we have been since 2009ish

Would love souttar to go the bundesliga

Should you all not wait to see if these players are retained at their newly promoted clubs and get ANY game time before you start claiming the "best generation, finished 11th in the world cup, ever".   

The press interest and the fans going on about his stature at set plays would be amazing. 'Where did they find this bloke?'

Cahill was technically limited also, still scored a bucket load at every level as one thing lower league players tend to be good at his heading and duels - if a player is gifted at this as Cahill was and Irvine is, they will still score at higher levels (albeit their technical limitations will be exposed more in general play). We see this with Irvine for the socceroos. He will play I'm sure of that  

Yep agree with this. The reason we call the golden generation, the golden generation, is everyone of them was playing at a top 5 club or champions league side (Culina, Archie, Chippers, Moore). 

Any of the big clubs in the leagues 6-15 is just as good as playing for a bottom of the table top 5 team say like Toulouse (maybe even better)

Rogic played champions league that season, so too Vukovic and Jedinak played several prem games, so we had 6 playing at the top level that season which is the most we've had since the golden gen.