The manager with the biggest, droopiest eyelids in the whole of the English game has blamed videogames for the state of the sport, particulary when it comes to grassroots players.

"I'm fed up with managers being made scapegoats for the state of our domestic game," he writes in his column in The Sun newspaper. "The English working class is turning its back on football - and that is not my fault.

"It may sound old and corny but when I was growing up, working class lads like me in the East End lived and breathed football. Now I rarely see a kickabout in the park. All I see are the dazzling lights of bedroom windows from the glare of TVs and computers. It seems football cannot compete with an Xbox."

The Portsmouth FC boss explains that he now looks to Africa as a source for up and coming footballing talent; a continent, he reckons, where the youth' passion for soccer has not been blighted by the Xbox/PlayStation/Nintendo generation.