Paul Sturrock insists James Beattie's Euro 2004 dream is not dead yet.

The Saints boss hailed the performances of his two strikers as Kevin Phillips netted two and Beattie one as Saints ran out worthy 4-1 winners at Wolves.

Beattie was again left out of Sven-Goran Eriksson's squad for last week's friendly against Sweden - England's final warm-up game before Euro 2004.

That would appear to make his chances of going to Portugal bleak.

But Sturrock believes if he can keep reproducing his last two performances then it's not yet impossible.

He said: "You're asking a Scotsman about an Englishman - I wouldn't mind the two of them being Scottish at the minute, I can tell you that!

"But I feel if he (Beattie) plays to these kinds of standards that took him into the England team then obviously if people were to be injured or lacking in form nearer the selection time then he'd be a consideration - but only if he plays to that style.

"For the Portsmouth game he tried to play a different style and he was disappointing on the day. He was disappointed personally in his performance there.

"In his last two games he's been lively and quite frightening at times, running down the channels and putting pressure on defenders.

"For the fourth goal he's chased the boy 70 yards to force him to make a mistake to give a pass to Delap who threads it through to Phillips - that epitomises to me the lad James Beattie."

He added: "When Beatts is like that you see a quality player.

"He has to live off his attitude and his work rate, He'd be the first to admit that, but when he lives off that he's a very dangerous player.

"The boy Phillips has had a wee twinkle in his step lately and is getting back to the times when he was scoring freely for Sunderland.

"Hopefully we'll reap the benefits of that for the remaining games."

Sturrock also praised the professionalism of Phillips, who apologised to him after the angry scenes that followed his substitution against Spurs last week.

"He came and apologised and was very professional in his approach," said the Saints boss.

"I don't mind people having concerns about that and being disappointed and he responded in the proper way.

"I didn't have to go and speak with him because he was strong enough in character to come and apologise, so I was very pleased about that."