AT one time, before the days of the Premier League, before the arrival of foreign owners, coaches and players, our four home nations used to find it easy to fill their national teams with top-flight players.

They’d almost all normally be playing in the First Division and, of the four countries, England’s team would be some way ahead of the other three.

Scotland were not too far behind because of the strength of Rangers and Celtic in their top division, but Wales and Northern Ireland were way behind because of the lack of strong leagues in those countries.

Nearly every dressing room had two or three Scotsmen in - and that usually caused a few rows!

And if you had a few Welsh in there too, you could have a choir on your hands.

But, can anyone tell me the last time a top class Scottish footballer came down to the Premier League and, indeed, also from Wales or Ireland - apart from Steven Davis, of course?

Recently, I can’t remember many, if any at all.

It tells us that the majority of players at the big clubs down here - and indeed many of the smaller ones too - are from abroad, which is something that obviously doesn’t help our international managers.

A figure recently published stated that only 25 per cent of regular players in the Premier League are Englishmen, and that doesn’t mean they are international class either.

That is something which makes the job of Gareth Southgate so much more difficult.

But, of course, and I know from my time managing Northern Ireland, the three other countries will find it even more difficult with the lack of players available to them playing regularly in the Premier League.

That is why I give full marks for their efforts in last year’s European Championships to Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill and Wales boss Chris Coleman.

The team spirit they had was obviously terrific, but their jobs will not get any easier.

A demonstration of that this week was when Chris Coleman called up a 17-year-old from Liverpool, Ben Woodburn.

It was something that caused a problem with Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, because the Wales manager called the player directly rather than going to Klopp first.

While I have big respect for Chris and get on well with him, on this occasion, I agree that he should have spoken to the club manager in the first instance.

They might well have disagreed over whether the player was ready to join the national team, but even so the club manager should have been the first one to be told and to tell his player he could join the squad.

But besides that, the fact that a 17-year-old, with no real Premier League experience, has been called up shows exactly the point I’m making.

Elsewhere the Scotland team were booed off at the end of their home game against Canada.

Most people would have expected a big score, but the Scottish team drew 1-1 and their goal came from a deflection.

It must be said that Gordon Strachan has a big job on his hands there.

They were the only country of our four not to get to the Euros last year and things don’t look much better for the upcoming qualifiers either.

However, with Gareth Southgate taking charge of his first game as full-time number one with England, it was interesting to see his team at least deserved a draw away at world champions Germany.

The difference on the night was our ex-player Adam Lallana, after a good run and beating the goalkeeper, saw his shot hit the post.

But it ended up being a fairytale farewell for the German skipper Lukas Podolski, who was playing his last game of 130, when he hit home a stunning effort from 20 yards into the top corner.

I can’t remember how many times I’ve said to people that teams should have players on the post from corners and why there are not more shots, like this one, from outside the box.

He proved my point perfectly with a wonderful strike and a fairytale end to his international career.

For England there was a lot to be pleased with too.

Gareth Southgate knows most of the players because he managed the under-21s and one of the advantages of being in a job like this for a while is watching the youngsters come through and make their ways through the ranks.

One of those last night was our man James Ward-Prowse.

Not only did he come into the squad, but he came on for his debut with team-mate Nathan Redmond to carry on the rise of his own career.

While he was not on long enough to change matters, it has given, especially to Ward-Prowse, a terrific incentive to carry on working hard, which in turn benefits the club.

The system that was widely talked about, with three at the back, four in the midfield and three at the front, looked good and gave the German defence many problems.

It will now be interesting to see if it is carried in competitive games, where it is essential to get results.

Despite the problems with the lack of players in the Premier League, the public expect England to get to the World Cup final stages.

Now the days of expecting us to win the cup have long since gone, the least we have to do is qualify for the tournament in Russia next year.

Nonetheless, in my opinion, the game against Germany was very entertaining and could have gone either way.

We have to remember it wasn’t a full strength German team, but both managers were able try young players, experiment with systems and I would think both of them would be happy on the night with what they saw.