Vialli: Managers forced overseas

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Vialli has backed a report by the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) which says English football is in crisis due to a drop in the number of young players coming through the system.

Vialli, the Italian who was the first Premier League manager to pick an entirely foreign XI, said in the PFA report 'Meltdown': "The sheer price of English players is the main turn-off."

He added: "Shaun Wright-Philips is worth £20million because he's English. If he were, say, Portuguese, he'd cost a quarter of that.

"The scarcity of English talent, coupled with the belief that they are less of a risk in terms of adaptability, is what drives their price through the roof."

The PFA have called on the Premier League to bring in a new rule so that every team has at least three home-grown players - but of any nationality - on the pitch at any time in order to reverse the trend.

The report says in 1992-3, 71% of top-flight players were English while last season that had dropped to 38%.

It also shows that since the Academy system began, only 120 English players from academies have made debuts in the Premier League. During the same time, 617 overseas players have made debuts in the top flight.

The report states: "The bottom line is a very simple one. Older, ready-made foreign players are blocking young English players' path into the Premier League."

PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor said: "It is a crisis - we commissioned this report before England had failed to qualify for Euro 2008 because we could see which way the wind was blowing."