Former Saints star Graeme Le Saux has issued a damning assessment of the attitude displayed by some clubs and young players towards representing England.

Le Saux was speaking after a miserable summer for the country’s youth sides, with the under-21s crashing out of the European Championships and the under-20s enduring a calamitous World Cup.

Stuart Pearce, axed as under-21 manager following the tournament, had bemoaned the absence of 17 players he claimed would have featured, but weren’t available.

Saints, for their part, were supportive of England, with right-back Nathaniel Clyne an integral part of Pearce’s squad, and midfielder James Ward-Prowse released to feature for the under-20s.

Only Luke Shaw was unavailable, but that was because he was forced to pull out of the under-21s through injury.

Le Saux insists more clubs need to show the national sides support, and that some players need to appreciate what an honour it is to represent their country.

“It’s important that the players respect the competitions and that they value the international competitions that they play in,” said the former left-back, who made 47 appearances for Saints, from 2003 to 2005.

“We need to create through the FA. With the under-21s there was a lot of talk about certain players not going. We need to address that. These tournaments are significant parts of your development as a player.

“Clubs need to feel that releasing players is the right thing to do and players need to really want to go to a tournament and play.

“If you go to a tournament under duress are you going to perform well? Probably not. It’s a shame to have a player who loses the value of playing for his country. We’ve got to make sure that awareness and significance of playing for your country is upheld.

“The dynamic has changed so the club is now the home of the player. Their weekly salary will probably be more than what they get to play for England Under-21s, but the significance of playing for your country is so important, we’ve got to re-connect that. There’s got to be pride.”

Le Saux was speaking at the launch of a three-year £16.8m joint-funding scheme between the Premier League and Sport England, aimed at improving youth sports participation.

He was joined by Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore, who rubbished the idea that home-grown talent was being stifled by the number of foreign players in the top-flight.

“That’s nonsense, absolute nonsense,” he said. “There were 210 players qualified to play for England playing in the Premier League last year. We ought to be able to find 11 to take the field to do well.

“Those players are playing week in, week out against the world’s best talent. Our responsibility is to make sure the youth development systems in this country are as good as they can be. That huge investment, £320m, in the elite performance plan is starting to see results.

“We’re starting to see more English-qualified people coming through the academies, we’re starting to see more take part in first teams.

“Last season, of the new registrations, more English players were being registered. And that’s a tide that’s turning and, therefore, our youth development systems are beginning to work even better than they’ve worked in the past.

“All we can do is be responsible for some of the input. Clearly, our responsibility ends once those players go off and are selected.”

Saints, awarded category one status for their academy as part of the Elite Player Performance Plan, certainly displayed a commitment to fielding home-grown players last season.

As well as Clyne, Ward-Prowse and Shaw, the likes of Adam Lallana, Jason Puncheon, Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez were all regular starters in the first-team.