AS always, I am looking forward to the England international match later this afternoon – but I must admit, I was surprised at our opponent.  

Gareth Southgate’s Three Lions have headed out to Eastern Europe for a European qualifying fixture against Ukraine. That, despite everything going on in their country.

It shows how important football is to the man of the streets, regardless of how his background or private life is going.  

The Ukraine national team are going ahead with their matches even though it would be unsafe to host the game due to the problems in their own country.

They are instead playing in Poland and I’m not sure how many of their supporters will be able to attend that one but it will give them an afternoon to focus on something else.

Next year, after the European Championships, it will be interesting to see whether Gareth is offered or accepts a contract extension – will he want to carry on or will he want to sit back with his feet up?

He could go back into club football and, in my own experience at the international level, although there are very few games in a year I would still go to watch other clubs every week.

If, in fact, Gareth is offered an extension but doesn’t want to carry on or is not offered one at all, the big question is who will take his place?

Obviously, I think it should be an English manager but there aren’t too many around who have the relevant experience.

One that could take over from Gareth, in my opinion, would be Eddie Howe. I kept in touch with him during his Bournemouth days and it has been interesting to watch his progress in my home area of the northeast. .

I personally think the Newcastle United boss would be the right person. However, one of his recent problems I saw was that one of his players was involved in a scrap late at night in the city.

Police were investigating an altercation which saw several punches thrown and bottles pelted at defender Jamal Lascelles, who has played over 200 times for the Toon, in the city centre.

I did notice that it was in the early hours of the morning after a defeat to Man City. My advice would be to only go out after you’ve won!

If you have won, it’s a wonderful night out – you probably won’t have to buy a drink anyway! In all seriousness, it doesn’t sound like Jamal did anything wrong on the night, and that is unacceptable.

I also saw the continuation of something else I mentioned in my column recently; Spain have now sacked their women’s team manager, Jorge Vilda.

It came in the aftermath of Spanish FA president Luis Rubiales being provisionally suspended by FIFA for his conduct, after they beat England in the World Cup final.

You’d probably think that because they had won the World Cup just weeks ago, everyone would be getting on just fine.

The Spanish players have reportedly refused to play until Rubiales is removed from his post. It is a shame for the players, who have had a great tournament overshadowed by all of this.

I also followed last week’s league games and was hoping Saints would get a result. It is always a bit awkward for me when they play a team from my home area.

I’m usually happy with a draw! But to see the northeast team win, on this occasion Sunderland – fair enough. To score five goals though, that made me check I was reading it right!

The fact that there is an international weekend now would normally help because you could work on that with the extra time, but I think Southampton would you believe have 16 of their players away with their countries!  

Russell Martin won’t be able to work with all of them as a result and will be hoping that none of his lads come back injured from those international games.

As the next match versus Leicester City is a Friday night, it’s not going to be 100 per cent helpful for Martin with some internationals playing up to the Tuesday before!

Let’s hope they come back fully ready to get those points in, bounce back from that result and get back amongst the top six.