If I were an Arsenal supporter, I’d be hanging my head in shame. And it has nothing to do with results…just personnel. How can any English fan possibly identify with a club side recently took the field without a single Brit in their 16-man squad.

Manager Arsene Wenger reckons such criticism smacks of racism. What rubbish; it smells more of deprivation to me. The Gunners and Chelsea, in particular, are depriving their loyal fans of the pleasure of seeing London lads in Gunners' shirts. And the FA are depriving home-grown players of the chance to play Premiership football by accepting the massive influx of overseas stars greedy to achieve their multi million-pound dreams.

This joke of a policy has to stop or they might as well change Arsenal’s name to Les Wengers and Chelsea’s to Jose’s Jokers. Granted, both teams are full of superstars but – with the exception of John Terry and Frank Lampard at Stamford Bridge – few have a genuine connection to the area they are supposed to represent.

I’m not saying foreign players should be banned from English football. Far from it – soccer needs the biggest names in the game. But if Premiership clubs are not to lose their identity altogether, the luxury element has to be balanced by a quota of home-reared players.

When I started following football four decades ago, there were fewer than a handful of non-British players in the Football League, as it was then called. At my club, Cardiff City, we regularly fielded five locally-born players – and the team that won promotion to the First Division in 1961 contained six Welshmen, three Englishmen and two Scots. The only time we ever saw foreign players was in European competition, a regular treat in the Principality in those days since the winners of the Welsh Cup qualified for the now defunct European Cup Winners’ Cup alongside their English counterparts.

How times have changed. But whatever Wenger says about picking a player for his quality, not his nationality, clubs like Manchester United are at least trying to keep the lid on the overseas contingent. The majority of Sir Alex Ferguson’s sides are invariably British - and I don’t see much difference in quality between his Red Devils and the Arsenal and Chelsea monsieurs and senors.