Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has told the Football Association to look at itself before blaming him for England's problems. "It seems to me that if England don't win something it is someone else's fault," said Scudamore.

"I have never, in my 15 years with the Premier League, said the competition's success, or lack of, is someone else's fault.

"We have not won the World Cup since 1966. The Premier League didn't start until 1992. What happened between 1966 and 1992? Whose fault was that?

"Let's run the reverse argument.

"Where does that leave the people at the FA in terms of their accountability?

"It frustrates me enormously because it is so palpably not true. It cannot be our fault on any level."

However, the number of home-grown talents within England's top flight has continued to dwindle at an alarming rate.

Only around 30% of Premier League players are English, a far lower home-developed percentage than other major European footballing nations.

But Scudamore is sick of being told the elite 20 clubs are responsible for England's demise.

"It is not the Premier League who ripped up the playing fields or didn't put money into schools," he said.

"It is not my fault fewer young kids are kicking a ball around or that the country is not safe enough for seven, eight, nine-year-olds to go down to the park on their own as I did and play football until after dark.

"We are putting on a competition the best players in the world want to play in. The population of England is only 60million and there are 212 countries playing this game.

"We can put out a good team, just like Andy Murray can win Wimbledon and Justin Rose can win the US Open.

"Good things do happen but they are not an automatic right. The idea an England team is going to be put together that will somehow beat the world is logically and mathematically implausible."