AFTER Wednesday night's embarrassing scenes at Wembley, it's clear English football has to be completely overhauled from top to bottom.

From the FA to the England manager's job, the Premier League to Academy football, everything about our game has to be scrutinised and then addressed because we might have the best league in the world, but we certainly don't have one of the best international sides.

Top of the hit-list has to be a complete revamp of the Football Association, because the people who make the big decisions in our game are simply not the best qualified to do so.

Just look at the bungled process that led to Steve McClaren being appointed the England manager 18 months ago. It was a complete shambles from start to finish.

What gets me is, why do people from the amateur side of our national game have a say in who should be the next England manager? It's just laughable.

The question is: will the FA really have the balls to conduct a full root and branch investigation' of their own organisation, because that's a bit like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas.

Whatever process the FA suits ultimately come up with to find' a new England manager, they have to unearth someone who can inject some much-needed pride and passion back into the national team.

For me, the obvious candidate is Alan Shearer, working alongside a more experienced coach.

As a player, Shearer was a lionheart who commanded the respect of opponents and team-mates in equal measure.

He's the type of guy who would make the players feel proud to wear the shirt, and he wouldn't be afraid to stand up to big-name players either, because no-one was bigger than Al when he was an England player.

I honestly think he would approach the job in the same way he approached it as a player; with a win-at-all-costs mentality.

All top managers have a certain aura about them and that's a quality Alan certainly possesses.

The important thing would be to make sure he's surrounded by the right people; people who could take care of the coaching side of things and offer the odd word of advice when needed.

However, it's no good having a top manager if we aren't producing enough quality players for him to work with.

For a while now, I've been worried about the growing number of foreign players in our game, and those fears are starting to come home to roost.

On Wednesday night, five of our top stars - Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney and Michael Owen - were all missing for various reasons, and the players who came in to replace them were blatantly not up to it, which begs the question: why have we no strength in depth?

We ended up chasing an equaliser with three strikers - Peter Crouch, Jermain Defoe and Darren Bent - who are not even regulars for their club sides!

Too many foreigners are playing in our game - and I don't just mean on Saturday afternoons in the Premiership, our Academy sides are now overflowing with them, too, so God help the next generation.

Until we address that particular situation, I fear we will always be a second-rate nation on the international stage.