Former England Under-21 manager Stuart Pearce accuses Phil Jones and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain of 'apathy' The Under-21s lost all three games and Pearce paid the price with his job weeks later. He was replaced by Gareth Southgate last month and has warned the FA that future success is unlikely unless the country's young talents recognise the importance of representing the Under-21s. He said: "In our wildest dreams do you honestly think that England or any nation in the world can turn up at a major tournament without six or seven - I think there were eight ­players with senior international caps - who could have played for the England Under-21s this summer? Out of those 17, you talk about Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Phil Jones, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere. The odd one was injury, [but] apathy played a big part of it - the Oxlade-Chamberlains of this world, the Phil Joneses, because they didn't want to come. Once they go through the golden ivory towers of the seniors they don't want to come and play with the Under-21s any more. There is no nation in the world that could suffer that. Until we solve that problem - however we solve it - [there will be no success]. If it's a case of stopping players going into the seniors because they don't want to step down, like the Spanish boys do and they're happy to do so, [then so be it]. Pearce's successor, Southgate, has already spoken of the need to warn players promoted to the seniors not to get carried away while the FA is also keen to be more assertive towards Premier League clubs to ensure the release of players. Pearce's argument is also undermined by the fact that he ignored Jack Rodwell, the Manchester City midfielder, who was eventually called up by Hodgson for the friendlies against the Republic of Ireland and Brazil when Tom Cleverley withdrew. Jones also played 90 minutes in Rio. "Our boys, for whatever reason, be it the power of the Premier League, the finance they get at such a young age, whatever it may be, there is a lack of real passion to want to play for your country no matter what," Pearce said. We have to solve that problem and give them international ­experience. Pearce revealed that his experience of the Olympics last year was also tar­nished by the same problem, with Bale pulling out of his Team GB squad with an alleged back injury. Forty-eight hours before Team GB's first game against Senegal, Bale had played in Spurs" game against Los Angeles Galaxy and later featured in the friendly against Liverpool. Team GB were eventually knocked out at the quarter-final stage. Pearce said: "We were going into the Olympic Games, I've spoken to him seven months prior about going to the Games, I'm going to put the squad out on the Friday morning - on Thursday he rings me and says his back's not so good, he's going to have to pull out of the squad. He plays his first game for Tottenham pre-season the same day as we play our first Olympic game. We've got the brightest talent in Britain at the time didn't want to go to the Olympic Games. And he wasn't alone, by the way. There [were] a couple of others as well, because of the media hype that football shouldn't be in the Olympics. Bale's representatives declined to comment on Tuesday night.