What's the thinking regarding him playing in the Smallwood role if we do get a new centre half in ?

When you see some of the collisions in both codes of Rugby it makes you realise what actors footballers are.

This is the first World Cup since I retired. As a result of that I've seen 95% of the matches from start to finish. It's been a great competition so far. I go back as far as Chile in 1962 and this is heading to to be one of best ever if not the best. Great games that will live in the memory, great goals that will also live in the memory. The refs have got to get a lot of praise for this, they've been terrific. They've let the games flow and only got the cards out when absolutely necessary. A refreshing change from our league football when every serious challenge seems to bring a card and sendings off seem to happen about every third game. All they need to do now is award post match yellow cards for simulation incidents like the one were Suarez went down holding his head after getting a knock in the middle of his back.

There were four teams playing yesterday that were all at least a goal better than England. The work rate of the Uruguay team was amazing, you could have wrung their shirts out in the sink after the game. That's what playing for the shirt means to me. When did our lot last play with that level of intensity ?

I'm saying that because " at the moment " I see no signs of us having serious cash to spend. I hope for everybody's sake that I'm proven wrong.

League football is a very small world. Any experienced manager worth his salt will know who's likely to be available. It's not like the days when we were signing players from all over the world anymore.

At this moment it isn't.

They've got to be in with a good shout. Whoever wins it will have to be better than Spain. I think they've impressed me the most to be honest.

Yeah Brazil will be there or thereabouts as will Spain. There are just too many teams in it for us to have to avoid for us to have a realistic chance of winning it.

If we were playing Japan next presumably the odds would be shorter still ?

We're obviously not going to agree on this but I wouldn't write Gladwin off just yet. I only saw him play in that egg cup game at Rochdale but I could see he had ability. He's got a good touch for a big guy and two good feet. He's not a flier but he has a clever change of pace and he could go past people on either side. He played out wide left at first and after we went down to 10 he came more inside. He was the only one that night who looked like he had some ceativity. Funnily enough he never played again after that game because he was injured. I'm wondering wether he was already carrying an injury when he came and he was trying to disguise the fact until it broke down completely.

The more teams go out the shorter the odds on any team still in it will get. I would have thought that was a given. I'd take Spain, France, Brazil, Portugal, Uruguay all to beat England and plenty of the other teams left in it give us a real game. At lot will depend on the conditions. If it's a night match in a cool climate and we can up the tempo of our game we have a chance. If it's a hot afternoon game and we play our usual style of " walking football " we've had it. I think it's significant that in the years since we adopted the " keep ball " style of football we haven't looked like winning anything.

Loaning players from Premier League teams is a massive gamble, especially in the case of young players. They can have major attitude problems. Didn't we loan Harper from West Brom ? He did next to nothing.

Pickford's not in the same class as Bonetti. He was a top class keeper who unfortunately will alway be remembered for having the worst game of his life in that England v West Germany game.

At this moment in time everything points to Mowbray having been given next to nothing to spend. Unless we are waiting for England to get knocked out of the World Cup so we can make an offer for Harry Kane.

I really meant he'll be under pressure from the " popular press " more than the FA. When England are in the World Cup expectations are never low once we've managed to win a game or two. People don their red, white and blue glasses as soon as a ball is kicked.

From what I saw last night that team Belgium put out would give our first team a game.

I hope he has turned a corner. He seemed to get easily discouraged when things weren't going his way. I'd be working on the mental side of his game as much as the physical. He could become a decent " hold up " type of centre forward but he'll never become a prolific goal scorer as he lacks that essential composure in front of goal.

His decision making is awful.

I agree with a lot of that. Loftus-Cheek looks handy but there's very little end product. Nobody grabbed a shirt for the Columbia game.

I only saw the second half courtesy of an horrendous traffic jam on the M62 in Yorkshire. Well Belgiums subs are better than our subs, we've learnt that. We looked laboured and one dimensional, almost every player needed two touches most of the time. We still have the bad habit of losing the ball in dangerous areas and we haven't get a set piece taker. Dier looks like he's put half a stone on and lost a yard of pace. Delph does ok but you can't play him and Dier at the same. Rashford won't have a better chance than in this World Cup and the chance Welbeck missed was a Jason Roberts style attempt. Southgate is under pressure now. We need a performance against Columbia.

That's not you being negative is it ?

I like to think I'm being objective not negative. I take my blue and white glasses off when I watch us play. There's no point in trying to fool yourself.

Or his finishing ability.

Do you seriously think we played well for the majority of the season ? I can think of maybe 6 to 8 games were we dominated teams for more than 30 minutes. Most of the time we had a short period of good play that was enough to win us the game.