The respective Football Associations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have reiterated their opposition to exposing their young players to the coaching methods of Stuart Pearce.

In the wake of the current England U21 manager’s claims that he’ll pick whoever he bloody well wants, the non-English FAs have acted quickly to point out that such action would “threaten their independence as football nations”, by which of course they mean that they wouldn’t trust Pearce to successfully manage a toaster without starting forest fires.

Speaking to Football Burp, the Welsh Football Association – Alun to his friends – pointed out that they have enough trouble producing young talent as it is without Pearce warping their fragile little minds with training techniques such as “Slide-Tackle the Traffic Cone” and “Run for Absolutely Ages in That Sort of Direction”.

Alun said: “With the likes of Gareth Bale, Aaron Ramsey and Jack Collison coming through, we are witnessing what might very well be the genesis of a new golden generation of Welsh footballers.

“Frankly, we’d rather they didn’t spend even five minutes under the tutelage of Mr Pearce, lest they suddenly start to equate ‘GET RID OF IT!’ with proper professional guidance and kicking f*** out of the opposition’s playmaker with an honest day’s work.

“As controversial as it may seem to some, one of the primary criteria that we enforce upon those we charge with educating our young footballers is that they were not at any point in their lives nicknamed ‘Psycho’.”

He added: “But, if anyone asks, it’s because we’re concerned about our independence, or something. I dunno, just make something up.”