Ossie Ardiles has warned that Fabio Capello cannot simply wave a magic wand over England - and blamed the demise of the national team on a lack of talented young players.

As one of the first high-profile overseas footballers to play in England, Ardiles is in a unique position to comment on the difficulties now facing the English game.

He said that England have real problems to overcome if they are ever to seriously challenge for the World Cup again.

"I don't think it is a question of Fabio Capello waving a magic wand and making England great again," Ardiles said.

"The real problem is the development of young players. Why are there not enough good English players at Under-23 and Under-21 [level]?

"When was the last time England won a world championship at that level? If you check the records, probably not more than once or twice in the last 40 or 50 years.

"Do England players lack a football gene? Do they have a deficiency? I don't think so. So it must be in the development, obviously. For me, that is the answer."

Ardiles dismissed suggestions that the nationality of the England manager was important to national identity, and also claimed that it did not matter who the manager was with the current situation.

"I don't think it matters if it is an English or foreign manager in the job," he continued. "If he does a good job he is going to be loved, like Jack Charlton was in Ireland.

"It doesn't matter who the England manager is. I think the problems are much, much deeper than just changing the manager."

Ardiles, who has coached in England, Japan, the Middle East and South America since his glittering playing career ended, said that the influx of foreign players was not to blame.

"The responsibility of the Premier League clubs is to have the best team possible: it doesn't matter if they are English, Argentine, Nigerian," he said.

"The people who have the real responsibility for England are the FA but who is the top manager in the youth set-up in England?

"In that position there should be one of the best managers in the world, who should be paid accordingly because these are the future World Cup champions.

"It is as simple as that. But for far, far too long, when Ricky and I arrived, in the '70s, and the early '80s, it was Charles Hughes...the long ball game.

"He was the one who said Brazil got it wrong. If you had someone like that in charge it was obvious that England were going to be suffering for a long, long, long time to come.

"What is needed in England is a kind of revolution in terms of developing youth players."

The situation was very different in Argentina, he said.

"Look at Argentina: they are going to the Beijing Olympics with players like [Juan Roman] Riquelme, [Javier] Mascherano.

"Perhaps they'll win it, perhaps they won't; but they will be fighting for it."

Riquelme, 29, and Mascherano, 23, were among the few experienced players picked by Argentina for the first match in their preparations for the defence of the Olympic title in August.

Most of the squad for this month's friendly against Guatemala were young, in keeping with Olympic rules that limit participants to under 23, with three over-age players allowed.

"These are the players who are young now but could be champions of the world in a few years' time," said Ardiles.

"Look at what happened in France; France was not even a real football country but they looked at the youth set-up and put all their efforts into a system that produced Zinedine Zidane and the others and they became world champions.

"This is exactly what England have to do. England can't even think about winning the World Cup. I would say they should think about qualifying first."

The arrival in England of Ardiles and former Tottenham team-mate Ricardo Villa, who both helped Argentina to win the World Cup in 1978, made headlines and opened the door to the modern era of multi-national club teams.

Ardiles remarked upon the sea-change in the world of football since they arrived in London nearly 30 years ago.

"No one spoke Spanish when we got to Spurs, and now the manager of Spurs is Spanish and the manager of England is an Italian.

"It is incredible what has happened here in 30 years - unbelievable."

Reuters