Jack Wilshere on Adnan Januzaj Case: ‘The only people who should play for England are English people’
England midfielder Jack Wilshere believes that England should not bother to secure the services of Manchester United hot-prospect Adnan Januzaj.
"For me, if you are English, you are English and you play for England. The only people who should play for England are English people," Wilshere told mirror.co.uk.
Januzaj was born and raised in Belgium. He was signed by United in 2011 when he was 16 and is also qualified to represent Albania, Turkey or Serbia.
The Belgium-born winger will, however, have to wait for five years, should he decide to play for the Three Lions, but Wilshere is firm in his stance that only natural-born Englishmen should be wearing the England uniform.
"If you live in England for five years, it doesn't make you English. You shouldn't play," he said.
"It doesn't mean you can play for a country. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years, I am not going to play for Spain.
"We have to remember what we are.
"We are English and we tackle hard and we are tough on the pitch and we are hard to beat. We have great characters.
"You think of Spain and you think technical football, but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard and we have to remember that."
Wilshere also prefers an English manager as a Three Lions mentor.
"I think it's better if there is an Englishman, but don't get me wrong, Capello did a lot for my England career. He gave me my debut and stuck with me from a young age so he was a good manager."
Meanwhile, former England player John Barnes, who himself was born outside of England, was supportive of the idea of Januzaj sporting a Three Lions uniform.
"In 1983, when I played for England, Jamaica never had a chance of qualifying for the World Cup - they weren't that interested in football yet," said Barnes.
"I don't know about Albania or Kosovo, but it's a question of if he was French, would he choose England over France? But if he decides he wants to play for England, then I don't see why not."