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Only 38 per cent of players in the Premier League are English; that is a damning statistic. Soon, the England manager will have to go scouting for players in the Championship - and when I say 'soon' I mean the next four or five years, perhaps even for the next World Cup.

They are not your players, they are loaned from the club. You just wheel them out for a game for England.

Nowadays there are too many players who can't get a contract elsewhere, who come to England and just take the money.

In England, footballers are respected more, the game is more noble, there's less cheating. Every Spaniard who goes loves it - and comes back a better player. If I had ever left, it would have been to England.

Footballers are an easy target. They are offered big lines of credit. Every sport is vulnerable; it's such a big gambling industry, and there are problems with syndicates in other countries.

English football is in a bad way because the foreign players here are so good, so dominant.

English football is really different to football in other countries.

Footballers do get a hard time, and there is a lot of generalization going on. When you get to meet players and know them as lads, it's always a bit different.

There are hundreds of Beckhams playing football all over the world.

I think sometimes managers like to buy players because they're more experienced from abroad or when they've got players under their nose that will give everything to the club they've been brought up with.