Wenger's blueprint the one to follow

On The Premier League:Thank God for Croatia. Had Slaven Bilic's polished and astute side not put England so firmly in their place at Wembley last week, the European Championship qualifiers would have been one in the eye for those who still cling to the Corinthian ideal that, in sport, you generally get what you deserve.

Try telling that to Scotland and Northern Ireland, who stretched every sinew and flexed every muscle in their desperate and ultimately doomed efforts to reach Euro 2008, while one of the most feeble England teams in living memory almost sneaked into Austria and Switzerland, not so much through the back door as through the lavatory window.

Qualification would have been a travesty and a free summer next year is fair reward for just about everyone connected to the increasingly shambolic English national team. Not only did the English FA appoint and persist with the comically clueless Steve McClaren, promoted so far above his natural station it is a wonder he did not prowl the touchline with cotton wool stuffed in his nostrils to stem the nosebleeds, but the players, too, gave the lie to their vastly over-inflated reputations with a series of performances that bordered on the offensive.

Abject defeats in all three of the side's major tests - in Zagreb, Moscow and at Wembley last week - and toothless displays against the mighty Israel and Macedonia have finally confirmed what England supporters have suspected for far too long: the nation no longer warrants a place at international football's top table.

So, while the rest of Europe celebrates seeing Rio, Robbo and Roo barred from the slopes of the Alps next summer, back in Blighty the inquest is already in full swing. McClaren, pampered players and the bungling FA have all been targeted but - worryingly, if predictably - so have the Premier League's foreign contingent.

It is a wearying debate, dredged up whenever the Three Lions' claws are blunted, but it is no more credible now than when it was first aired when the English game was overhauled in 1992.

The main thrust of the argument is that the influx of Carlos Kickaballs from Australia to Zaire and everywhere in between is effectively choking the development of home-grown players. Arsenal - managed by a Frenchman and laden with foreign players - are always cited as the biggest villains, although Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and several of the top flight's lesser lights are scarcely less culpable.

Apocalyptic prophecies are delivered, usually by Trevor Brooking or Howard Wilkinson, and the media engage in a mass session of tut-tutting before moving on to something more interesting, like Frank Lampard continuing to stall, like a clapped-out Cortina, over yet another new contract offer.

It is, of course, an utterly ludicrous hypothesis, relying as it does on the fundamental untruth that Premier League clubs would rather import talented foreigners into their ranks than equally gifted Englishmen. They wouldn't.

The bald fact of the matter is there are not enough capable youngsters sloshing around our crumbling youth system, an utterly predictable result of failing to invest sufficiently in adequate grassroots facilities and allowing the proposed Centre of Excellence in Burton to become mothballed. Faced with such a grim dearth of talent, it is no wonder so many Premier League clubs choose to look abroad, where the prices are lower and the technical standards higher.

Foreign players are an easy target - just as foreign workers are when the issue of immigration rears its ugly head - but Fifa could enforce a quota system on clubs fielding non-native players tomorrow and it would make no difference to the fortunes of the English national side.

The only significant effect would be to corrode the quality of the Premier League, making television companies think twice before signing multi-million-pound broadcast deals and driving away fans in their droves. Quotas, far from revitalising the national game, would sound a death knell for the sport in England.

Ironically, it is clubs such as Arsenal who could yet provide a blueprint for a workable future. Cynics who like to imagine the north London club's Hertfordshire training base as little more than a well-appointed international school might be surprised to discover that the club has just eight foreign players in its academy. The vast majority of the under-16, -17 and -18 sides currently excelling at youth level are English teenagers, albeit schooled in Arsène Wenger's continental philosophy.

Wenger fully expects this clutch of talented tyros to form the basis of his first-team squad by 2012, marshalled by the grizzled trio of Kolo Toure, Cesc Fàbregas and Robin van Persie. It is a sunny prospect for Arsenal supporters and also shines a beam of hope for England fans in their darkest hour.