Arsenal hero Paul Merson says English players should move abroad.

Writing in the Daily Star Sunday, Merson declared: "Roy Hodgson was barking up the wrong tree this week when he said that having too many foreign players in the Premier League hurts the ENGLAND team.

"The problem is not about how many foreign lads we have playing here - it's that we don't have enough English players plying their trade abroad.

"I don't know a single Englishman who hasn't gone to play in another country and not come back a better player.

People like David Beckham, Paul Ince, Gazza, even going further back to the likes of Ray Wilkins, all improved as players.

"If we had five or six players playing in the top leagues around Europe, I am 100 per cent certain that would help England."