I don't know about you but I found myself switching over to see what was on The Bill during the England game - if you can call it that - against Sweden.

Everything is so predictable now, with senior players either dropping out or not selected, loads of substitutions made and, even when we lose, the manager saying he's found some good out of it.

The critics could more or less write their story before the game, detailing how supporters have been cheated, spending good money to watch what effectively is more like a testimonial.

Individual skills can sometimes be admired but the team never gels and, in all probability, will never take to the field together again.

The finger has to be pointed at the present regime running the England set-up. Admittedly clubs at the top level now have to play more European games, but going back to Alf Ramsey's days and after him (Don Revie, etc) games were approached in the same way as World Cups or European Championships.

The best teams were always selected, players would never dream of wanting to miss out, while fans got full value for their money.

Even Sven said the timing of this particular fixture was bad as next week our top clubs are playing in Europe and this weekend Manchester United and Arsenal meet in the semi-final of the FA Cup.

There is still a certain amount of pride in reaching the Cup final and there will be a few more hundred thousand pounds in the coffers, but the result will matter not one little bit when it comes to qualifying for Europe. That will have already been achieved from the two clubs' league position.

In fact all the competition will do, as happened with Saints last year, is ensure that either Millwall or Sunderland are in the UEFA Cup next year even if they lose.

Sven saying that the England fixture date is wrong is really an about-face - at one time that fixture would have been right and the European club fixtures wrong.

But because the money men have started to include the top four teams in the European Champions League, it means more games for the clubs, more income and less scope for internationals.

To be fair to clubs, they still have to pay players' wages when they are on international duty and they certainly don't want to have star players coming home injured.

As manager of Northern Ireland and number two with England, I soon realised that groin strains became more prevalent when friendly internationals came around. Miraculously, they cleared up by the following Saturday!

This week, for example, Wales had 11 drop out, Scotland nine and Northern Ireland eight.

Ryan Giggs, on his own website, said he had to pull out with a groin strain, not realising that Manchester United had informed the FA that the reason was a hamstring.

If both these injuries are connected, he has a real problem. But I'm pretty certain he'll play in the semi-final and, if that's so, the medical team deserve an Oscar. So what is the answer?

The national managers could put their collective feet down and invoke the rule which says that every player should first of all report to be examined by the international team doctor, and secondly, if they do pull out, they should not be allowed to play the following Saturday.

This will rarely happen because they do not want to fall out with the top club managers.

The other answer is to still take advantage of international dates through the season but, particularly at this time of the year, have training get-togethers on home soil which would cut out travel time to and from foreign parts and enable the manager to spend more time with his players. This would be beneficial all round. Players would also be back with their clubs at reasonable times - not, as often happens, on a Friday morning when they might be about to set off for an away game.

How much pressure is put on to maintain the sort of income that friendlies like Swedish generate I don't know, but one thing is certain. England expects that in June we go out to Portugal and win everything, because all supporters will be focussing on the national team, with clubs having finished their season.

But, before we start feeling sorry for Sven, it's surely some consolation for him that as a reward for taking the knife out of Claudio Ranieri's back, he's got a longer contract and an extra million pounds on top of the £3m-£4m he is reportedly earning.

It's a hard life for some!