If I was a pessimist I'd say well if we do have to sell him at some point at least we'll get a good fee for him now. Mid table championship is where his game is at the moment but there's plenty of time for improvement.

The players aren't as good as the media keep telling us. That's why we keep blowing up at competitions.

Yeah that's great news.

In that recent TV programme about England managers one of the former players said that some of Hoddles team were put out because he could still do things in training that they couldn't. That says a lot about the players.

But would we have been able to deal with the Japanese fantastic work rate and ability to move the ball around ?

That's the thing, they did play at that level of intensity. Can we ? We'll find out tonight. If we don't we'll be going home, that's a certainty.

These pundits just tell you the obvious. In days gone by when the likes of Malcolm Allison and a sober Brian Clough, Don Revie etc were on the panel you actually learned elements of the game that had passed you by.

Not in Blackburn.

The National Team has been going backwards for years. Is there anybody who watched last night's game that thinks we could have beaten either of those teams ? I've seen most of this World Cup and we're miles behind in terms of individual ability compared to lots of the teams that competed here. We don't produce the creative play makers that the top teams do, the Hazards, James Rodriguez, Modric, Countinho, Golozin etc. We just produce stodgy runners who can occasionally run past people but can rarely beat a man with the ball at their feet or pick out a clever pass. It's all so obvious, predictable and easy to play against. I like Southgate as a bloke, if I had a daughter he'd be a great son-in-law, but I'm not convinced by him. To be honest until we come up with strategies to bring through the next Gascoigne, Bobby Charlton, Johnny Haynes we'll struggle whoever we have as manager. I live facing a huge common. In the past when I was a young guy it was thronged with kids playing football. Throughout this World Cup I haven't seen one game of coats for goals football taking place there. Not one. When my grand kids visit they never think of going for a kick about, it's computerised games all the time.

I'll give you one - Sean Dyche. Kill two birds with one stone. Weaken the Dingles and get a proper manager in charge.

Smallwood had an unconvincing second half of the season at a lower level than we are at now. Whittingham contributed very little even at a lower level. Evans has blown hot and cold for as long as I can remember, most of the time it's been cold. Rothwell we know nothing about at this level. Bennett finished the season as our first choice right back.

Modric isn't playing in the Championship.

I thought Belgium were lucky last night . The usual cracks were starting to appear in the team ( players gesticulating at each other when passes were misplaced etc ) when they got that fluke opening goal that enabled them to get back into the game

" bigger and faster " and not as stupid. That was a classic example of dumb football. Matty Derbyshire would be proud of them.

Yeah, Hari-Kari there. You're a team of midgets and you decide to knock a long corner in with the seconds left on the clock. Suicidal.

Does that mean we'll be moving Whittingham on ?

I'd be surprised.

Is that the Burton that spent most of last season around the bottom end of the league ?

He,s a defensive midfield player yet his tackling and aerial ability is rated as " weak". How does that work ?

We'll need to get him on a diet right away then.

We've gone soft in this country. The VAR got that right for me, no card. You watch Rugby League. Same thing happened in the England v New Zealand game last week only the perp meant it. The Kiwi stood on the England players hand when he was on the ground. The Brit jumped to his feet and punched the Kiwi with the same hand.

I'm calm.

In an ideal world you'd have a centre half who was commanding in the air and the other centre half who was quick over the ground. We haven't got a centre half who's really commanding in the air. Downing is the nearest we have and he's only good enough as a back up player. I don't think the Smallwood of the second half of last season will be good enough to play on a regular basis. We need a plan B there. It may be too soon for Travis and Tomlinson.

I just think we could do with a bit more height in the middle of the back four.

I used to be a season ticket holder at Rochdale Hornets until this season. I suspect we'll be playing you next season.