Why brilliant Bale could spell bad news for England

By Robbie Savage

Published 21:58 26/08/10

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Brilliant to see Tottenham in the Champions League group stages. Huge credit to Harry Redknapp, a great manager, and to Peter Crouch, who is obviously going through a hard time in his personal life but hasn't let it affect his play.

As a Welshman thing that really excites me about Spurs, though, is Gareth Bale. I love seeing teams play with out-and-out wingers and it's great to watch him and Aaron Lennon refusing time and again to cut inside and instead taking on full backs. His pace is terrific, his goal against Stoke was a masterclass in technique and, most importantly, he's got rid of that stupid paperclip in his hair!

With Bale, Craig Bellamy, James Collins, Boaz Myhill and Joe Ledley - plus the brilliant Aaron Ramsey to come back next year - this is a hugely promising Welsh side. I don't like their manager but I love these lads.

They will not fear England either and the qualifiers in March and September will be very interesting indeed.

But it would be an utter farce if Mikel Arteta was among the English ranks on those nights. He's a fantastic player but he's Spanish.

I know we once had Eric Young and Vinnie Jones in the Welsh side and Vinnie was an inspiration to me who was so kind and helpful at the start of my international career.

But for me you should not be able to play for a country unless you have been born there an to call up Arteta would send out a shocking message to young English players.

Where would it stop? With the influx of kids from Europe and the wider world coming into the big Premier League clubs' academies and becoming naturalised citizens like Arteta, you could end up with an non-English England XI.

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Everybody in life deserves a second chance and though I hate what he's done, that includes Marlon King.

He has done his time and Coventry shouldn't be criticised for signing him. But King must understand that there cannot and should not be a third chance.

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ROBBIE HATES... Not backing my hunches. I do a weekly acca for the William Hill website and this week I advised punters to get in on Andy Carroll to score at any time against Villa, City to beat Liverpool and Chelsea to beat Wigan giving a three-goal start. It came in at 40-1... and guess who wasn't on it?

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