Chris Sutton, as one of the two leading scorers in the English Premiership, has rarely been off target this season. Yet the 24-year-old Blackburn Rovers striker will surely regret the shot he has just fired through his own foot by withdrawing in high dudgeon from the England B squad for Tuesday's match against Chile B at West Bromwich.

Annoyed at not being included in Glenn Hoddle's senior squad for the full-scale World Cup warm-up against Chile at Wembley the following night, Sutton has effectively walked out on the England coach.

By doing so he may well have limited his international career to the 11 minutes which earned him his first full cap after he had replaced Paul Scholes towards the end of the friendly against Cameroon last November. Previously he had won two B caps under Terry Venables.

"I tried to persuade Chris not to pull out of the squad," Hoddle said yesterday, "as did his club manager, Roy Hodgson. But in the end it's his decision. If someone doesn't want to play for their country at any level I won't force them."

As a national manager-coach not to be trifled with; Hoddle is in the Alf Ramsey mould. Friendly persuasion having failed, it will be surprising if Sutton's services are required by England this side of the World Cup, and his prospects of figuring in Hoddle's attempt to qualify for the 2000 European Championship already look remote.

Apparently Sutton believes he has been demoted by being chosen for the England B party when the off-form Les Ferdinand has been included in the senior squad, along with two uncapped strikers, Liverpool's Michael Owen and Coventry City's Dion Dublin.

But Hoddle has already explained that the idea of playing the likes of Sutton, Arsenal's Ray Parlour, Rio Ferdinand of West Ham, Paul Merson of Middlesbrough and another Blackburn player, Jason Wilcox, on Tuesday would be to see how they shaped up as World Cup possibles.

"If ever the B games are important it's now," he said when the squads were announced. "We're going to have a little look at them in the B matches to see if they're better than the players I already have. Better to play in a B game than watch the A team from the bench.'

Clearly Sutton is unimpressed.