STATS SUPPORT SCHOLES CALL
The Arsenal captain described his England colleague as 'an intelligent player who works hard and scores goals' and gave him his vote England's Player of the Year.
Scholes, who is a few weeks shy of his 26th birthday, already has 27 England caps and 10 international goals to his name - making him the highest scorer in the current squad.
However, goals are just one the things that this all-rounder offers to Kevin Keegan's side.
Scholes' stats at club level last season epitomised what most of us have suspected all along.
The compact player hit the target with 50% of his efforts and he saw 15% of his shots nestle in the back of the net, giving him a total of nine goals in the Premiership.
Goals have always come easy to the ginger Oldham Athletic fan, who once scored eight goals in a school game and every one was with his head, despite standing at just over five feet tall.
The England man set up five goals for fellow Red Devils this season has and completed 78% of his passes in the opposition's half. His passing accuracy in the opposition's half has risen to 82% with 79% of his distribution in the final third finding a team-mate.
In fact, Scholes' long passing is vastly superior to colleague David Beckham's with 85% finding it's target - 16 percentage points better than the media's favourite footballer.
Just like his international-shy team-mate Ryan Giggs, Scholes likes to run with the ball and embarked on 84 dribbles and runs, as well as forcing 13 corners.
The Manchester United attacking-midfielder was voted England Supporters' Club Player of the Year for 1999 - a landslide victory by all accounts - and was hugely influential in getting Keegan's side to Euro 2000, with the hat-trick against Poland and both of the goals in the play off with Scotland.
After the tournament, he was one of only a few Englishmen to return with an enhanced reputation.
The public will perpetually debate who should be in the England team; The problematic left-side. Should David Beckham play on the right or in the centre? Should we use three, four or five at the back? Is David Seaman still up to the job? And so on...
The list is extensive, but one debate that is never raised is - should Paul Scholes be in the starting eleven?
