England lack a David Beckham, says former Scotland International Neil McCann

Former Scotland player Neil McCann says that England lack a player like Paul Scholes are David Beckham, someone who can galvanise the team with their world-class talent.


Beckham is regarded as one of the iconic English talents. He captained the country for several years and remained as one of the record appearance makers before being overtaken by Wayne Rooney. After his retirement a few years ago, Beckham has been looking to get into football ownership rather than football management. So far, his dream of becoming a football owner is yet to materialise.

However, he simply cannot be forgotten with regard to the England national team has McCann has once again reminded the major issues affecting the Three Lions ahead of the meeting with Scotland. McCann played for the Scottish national team when they took on England in a game at Wembley in 1999.

Over the course of a career that spanned between 1988 and 2005, he made 26 appearances for the Scottish national team. In terms of his club career, he represented Rangers for a period of five years which is regarded as the best in his career.

McCann acknowledged that England have a lot of young and upcoming talent coming through, but it is not to satisfy the immediate hunger of the team.“They have enough good players in there. But they don’t have a Scholes anymore. Yes, Jack Wilshere’s a very good player, playing regularly for Bournemouth. But he’s not in Scholes’ class.But you think about that team from ’99 and how Scholes, in particular, is regarded. He’s probably held in a higher regard since he finished playing. ‘So you think of Scholes as this gifted footballer, then you had the enforcer in Paul Ince. They had David Beckham on the right and Jamie Redknapp wide left,” said McCann.