INTERVIEW

Friday, September 17, 10:28am London Time
The Wise move that will help England
By David Mellor


Dennis Wise for England? It doesn't seem so daft after Wednesday night, when far from being outclassed by Europe's finest, the game's solitary Englishman was one of the night's shining stars.

Disciplinary problems? I hear you say. Of course, but we are talking about David Batty's slot remember. Wise was gutted when, what he believes on good evidence to have been a personal grudge by Glenn Hoddle, he was frozen out of the England set-up after Terry Venables had given him a run. He deserves another chance.

He may be 32 and have a suspect temperament, but Batty is 30 and after his vicious assault on a Pole's ankle in Warsaw last week, the same criticism of the red mist could be levelled against him - and Paul Scholes for that matter. One thing is not in doubt: Wise certainly uses the ball better than the Leeds man, as his performance against AC Milan testified.

Some people profess dismay that only Wise among the Brits started, but I say, so what? In a world where EU rules decree that someone from Paris or Rome has just as much right to work here in any capacity as a native-born Londoner does, it's silly to deny ourselves the chance to build a team of genuine international class by signing up all-comers.

After all, Stamford Bridge regulars have had to put up with a lot of blue-shirted rubbish down the years, and the fact they were all Brits was precious little consolation as Chelsea plumbed the lower depths of the old Second Division. In those days, and they weren't so long ago either, the very idea of a game against AC Milan would have seemed ludicrous.

Anyway, the full England team turning out for Chelsea on Wednesday couldn't have done better, and would probably have fared worse. And if Chelsea really are, as the Telegraph's football editor asserted yesterday, Europe's fastestimproving side, it's their foreign policy that's done it. And real Chelsea fans, as against the moaning minnies, don't care if players come from the Planet Zog so long as they do the business. Besides, in a transfer market that values Michael Duberry higher than Marcel Desailly, there's really no choice is there?