Osgood: why England must exploit the rarity of Rooney

Chelsea's indomitable showman gives his verdict on Ranieri's Blues and bemoans lack of genuine flair in modern game

"I was so elated that I was back in the side and we were through that when I scored I carried on running, jumped the dog track and fell to my knees and saluted the human cauldron that was The Shed. In that moment, the fans and I were one, united in euphoria."

There are moments that stay with you for a lifetime, whether you are a legend or in thrall to one. It was 24 March 1971 and Chelsea's European Cup Winners' Cup quarter-final opponents FC Club Brugge held a 2-0 advantage from the first leg, but more importantly it marked the comeback of The King. That season, the Football Association had one of their periodical crackdowns on indiscipline. Peter Osgood had been hauled before them and received an eight-week ban. Eight weeks! His crime? Three bookings. Mind you, back then you had virtually to commit GBH to incur the referee's displeasure.

For the Chelsea forward his return that exhilarating night was like a release from the greyhound traps. The No 9 scored twice in Chelsea's 4-0 triumph in a sequence which culminated with the London club securing the Cup-Winners' Cup, after a replay, against Real Madrid in Athens. For those of us in that cauldron it encapsulated everything we idolised about an extraordinary footballer. The most gifted English forward of his generation, he was a showman with a seemingly imperious disdain for the ordinary mortals in opposition.

Friends might take the latest girlfriend to a Monet exhibition at the Tate; you'd take yours to The Shed to admire Osgood, scorer of no fewer than 220 goals in 560 games for Chelsea and Southampton. When he did so, there was a shrug, as he knelt, acclaiming the faithful, and an impudent grin from the man whose delicacy of touch had much in common with Dennis Bergkamp, and an off-field reputation which bore much comparison with George Best, although he insists reports of his over-indulgences were exaggerated.

Would that Sven Goran Eriksson wereblessed these days with such lustrous talent. Yet Osgood's performances for England were risibly few. Four in total. "I wasn't alone," he says. "Tony Currie, Frank Worthington, Rodney Marsh, Alan Hudson, Stan Bowles, and myself – I don't think we got 20 caps between us. How many would we have got today?"

Today, he believes, a dearth of that kind of player will continue to inhibit England's achievements. "We're missing that bit of sparkle," he says. "You look at the Brazilians and others and they've got that bit extra. We seem very regimented, and predictable. Other teams know exactly how we are going to play. Someone like little Joe Cole can come on and buzz around and beats people, but otherwise we've no one to compare with the Rivaldos, the Ronaldos, someone to turn the game – unless Becks takes one of his wonderful free-kicks.

"Up front, we've got Michael Owen who's electric. He's the closest we've got to a foreign player, with his pace and ability to do something out of the ordinary."

Yet, who should partner him? Everton's Wayne Rooney, even at his tender years, has impressed Osgood as a potential international phenomenon. "Imagine those two young Merseyside whizzkids together, him and Owen. It would be fantastic, wouldn't it? I think Rooney'll play for England next year. Eriksson will give him a chance. Certainly, if he was doing good enough for Everton at the time I'd chuck him in."

Osgood adds: "He's one of those tough northern boys who's got everything. I'd say, 'Here, we've got a little jewel, get him in the side.' You wouldn't throw him in against a Brazil or Italy. That could knock him back a few years, but a weaker side, Macedonia, or someone like Scotland [he laughs]... at least give him a run-out for 45 minutes."

Osgood himself was 18 when Tommy Docherty gave him his Chelsea debut. It was five years before Sir Alf Ramsey recognised his talent and selected him for the 1970 World Cup squad. "I came on against Romania as sub and Mooro [the captain, Bobby Moore] told me I would be playing against Brazil," recalls Osgood. "In fact, Franny [Francis] Lee was chosen, not me. I wasn't even in the 16. I was absolutely devastated. I got absolutely pissed that night. I missed training the next day. Alf never picked me again until '74. He was a lovely man to work with, but he simply didn't pick flair players."

Today, Osgood, at 55, would be hard-pressed to bend his knees in prayer, let alone slide along them to receive the acclamation of a crowd. He has had a knee- cap replaced, and as he climbs out of his Volvo at the pub where we meet near his home outside Southampton (he lives there with his third wife Lynn), the discomfort is evident. The legacy, he says, of cortisone injections given over the years to get him through games.

Now he's the fan, exhorting Claudio Ranieri's men to higher deeds and in demand as an after-dinner speaker. Until July this year, Osgood worked on the hospitality side at Stamford Bridge. On the same day that a poll of former players named him Chelsea's greatest all-time player, he received a letter from the chairman, Ken Bates, advising that his services were no longer required. "I hope Ranieri spends the £10,000 saved wisely," he observed drily in his amusing and irreverent autobiography*.

The incident provoked some verbal tennis between him and Bates. "Bates was saying that our Seventies side was a myth," says Osgood. "It was a shame because it was the day after Hutch [Ian Hutchinson, his former strike partner and close friend] died. That was a bit sad. I would have thought he could have just left it alone at that time. But that's the way he wants to be in life. I'm Chelsea through and through, and I don't really care what Old Greybeard says. I'm one of the boys now. As they say, the king is dead, long live the king."

The crown has now passed on to Gianfranco Zola, according to Bates the greatest Chelsea performer. "Fine, I'd go along with that now," says Osgood. "Superb player. I've even got a shirt signed by him. It says, 'A pleasure to sign a shirt for such a great player.' But I'd say, 'Mr Chairman, look at the pitches they play on, and what would Zola do with someone like Chopper [Ron] Harris up his arse for 90 minutes?'"

Under Ranieri Chelsea appear to be potent challengers once again for Europe's élite tournament. "He's obviously done a fair job, hasn't he?" agrees Osgood. "He looks to have finally got a fair little squad there, which looks like it might be going somewhere. If he can get a good run in the league and get in the Champions' League then he's proved himself. But he hasn't done it yet."

Osgood admits he would have relished playing today, and not just for the financial rewards. "I'd have loved it because you know you can play football. There aren't gorillas kicking you down and going over the top at you. In our day, it was ridiculous. If you moaned to the ref, your opponent would mutter 'Come on you poof, get on with it.' You'd put up with it for so long and then you'd retaliate. Centre-halves would come from behind and there was only one thing you could do. [He motions an elbowing action.] People say it was a coward's way, but what else could you do? These guys could break your legs."

Osgood broke his in 1966 at Blackpool in a challenge involving a teenage defender named Emlyn Hughes. Still, as the the victim tells his audiences at dinners, he bears no grudges against Hughes. "After all, my leg got better. He's still got that silly f****** voice." The character who in his pomp wound up some of the most uncompromising men in the game has lost none of that impudence which made him an outstanding performer.

* "Ossie: King of Stamford Bridge" is published by Mainstream (£15.99).