England boss Sam Allardyce keen on recruiting foreign-born players

Sam Allardyce says he remains keen to consider any player eligible for England regardless of whether they only qualify through residency.

Allardyce has already confirmed that he had explored the possibility of calling up Sevilla midfielder Steven N’Zonzi, who spent six years in England with Stoke City and Blackburn Rovers, only to discover he was ineligible after having represented his homeland, France, at under-21 level.

Fabio Capello had previously made an attempt to secure Spanish midfielder Mikel Arteta’s services, which foundered for the same reason, and Allardyce said the Football Association has a department actively exploring potential options for new recruits.

The new England boss told reporters: “Do you pick the best squad to win the World Cup, and if one or two of those are like N’Zonzi, do you do it? Or don’t you? And then you suffer the consequences of not winning it or not getting to the quarterfinal and failure, so if that player is top quality…

“Cricket do it, don’t they? Rugby do it, athletics do it. It’s not happening anyway so we can cover that again if it does.

“It’s not my department to find those. We have a department to look at the whole situation at all areas for every international team.”

As Allardyce has highlighted, the England cricket team has regularly used foreign-born players such as Eoin Morgan and the rugby union side has players including Manu Tuilagi.

The football team has included players born outside England but has so far focused on those who moved to the country in their youth, like Jamaicans John Barnes and Raheem Sterling, or have English parents, like Owen Hargreaves.

Other nations have brought in naturalised players, including Spain’s Marcos Senna and Diego Costa and Portugal’s Deco and Pepe, while Italy have a long history of using “oriundo.”

Allardyce said naturalising foreign players “happens in all the other countries” and pointed to “the shortage of English players in the Premier League,” adding: “I think it is only 31 percent, and if those don’t play on a regular basis, surely if you are going to win something and that player is of the calibre to force his way into that side then you give him a chance.

“It’s a very delicate subject. I’ll have to see if I actually do it one day how it’s perceived across the nation. If he goes out and scores the winner, will it be quite that bad?”

England have endured a long period of disappointment at international level, and the criticism of the players’ efforts at Euro 2016 has persisted due to the contrast with Great Britain’s success at the Olympic Games, where only United States collected more gold medals.

Allardyce said: “I think that we all come under scrutiny in football terms, particularly after the Olympics, about what is our identity? The Olympians have got great credit for what they’ve done and achieved again, so what do we take from that to make our identity?

“For me it’s about going out and the players showing not just how passionate they are, but how skilful they are at international level.”

The 61-year-old former Bolton, Blackburn, West Ham and Sunderland boss said he was viewing the England job as “the final challenge of a long career” and that he would “leave no stone unturned, to give them [the players] all the capabilities and possibilities physically, technically, tactically and mentally to cope with what’s coming their way.”

He added: “That’s the greatest challenge of all for me. Having conquered — if you like — the Premier League for so long with so many different clubs, this challenge is a much wider scope and much more challenging, but for me much more exciting.”