By John Nicholson

It seems likely that a revamped version of the Home Internationals will be revived in a couple of year’s time. England will be invited to join Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland in the end of season tournament but the F.A is likely to turn it down because it thinks England needs to be playing other European friendlies and their place will be taken by Ireland to make a Celtic Cup competition.

This is a wonderful idea and I’d like England to be involved. It’d be much more fun to watch than seeing England play the likes of Albania in a meaningless friendly. But hey, we’re just the fans, what do we matter? It’s not as if the way we’ve operated in the 20 odd years since the Home Internationals were abandoned, has brought England any success.

The FA doesn’t seem to consider that football as a sport and as a nation needs to keep its fans entertained. Team England is not there just to give them a job or to allow them to suck down free gravy, though it does exactly that. It’s there to give us; the paying public a good time and feel a bit of pride in our country. We all know that playing the other UK countries and Ireland too would be excellent competitive fun for fans and players alike.

Sometimes it seems as if that’s exactly why the FA doesn’t want to do it. Lets’ have some more meaningless games against Estonia instead. Isn’t playing International games with something win, with some degree of tension better practice for the European Championships and World Cup’s than just trotting out a half strength side against Slovenia in a meaningless friendly? Yes. It is. So let’s do it.

But even without England I would love to see a Celtic Cup. It’s a great idea because it allows all those national sides to play in a competition that would have some status and which they’d have a chance of winning. It would also be a great way to fill some of the barren summer months. Yes players and managers will complain about being tired after a ‘long’ season. That’s a convenient excuse for being out of form, nothing more.

Don’t forget, as I write this, EPL players are all on holiday on full pay and most of them have been for over a month and a half already. Even players involved in the Champions League finally have had a month off already and still have 7 weeks before the new season starts. There’ll be a bit of pre-season training before then but basically they have almost 3 months off without playing game. How can that be right? No athlete needs 3 months off when all they have to do during the season is play 3 hours of football a week. How can anyone be tired doing so little work? No one said they were tired when they had to play 42 league games in the 1970s on pitches made of glue and sand with only a cold sponge and an ex-army psychopath for physiotherapy. Though a lot of players these days behave like a lot of pre-menstrual prima-donnas, they could certainly manage to play a couple more games without losing valuable time getting their nails manicured or getting expensive hair cuts.

So clearly, that isn’t a real issue to stop the return of Home Internationals, especially as all it would do is replace a couple of friendlies that are already booked in for the national side.

Of course, the fans of Scotland and England famously used to tear each other apart when they played in the 70and I hear people say that’s another reason not to bring the games back. But time has moved on. The culture of football has changed. We don’t fight in the streets any more. Not much. It’s policed better and CCTV monitors us all so we can be nicked even after the event. I don’t see that as a problem.

If fans can exert any pressure on the FA, which remains in doubt, the vast majority would be in favour of the Home Internationals, including England finishing off each season. But I despair of the FA ever doing anything that fans want. Unrivalled as a bunch of fat arsed amateurs concerned only with preserving their own power and their unearned income, I doubt they know or care what regular football people think about anything. You don’t get to hear much with your head in a trough.

John Nicholson writes each week for Football 365 and EPL Talk. You can listen to John’s wonderful stories on episode 30 and 45 of the EPL Talk Podcast, as well as purchase his excellent Footy Rocks book and order one of his unique rock’n roll T-shirts.

Northern Ireland manager and Fulham caretaker manager Lawrie Sanchez faces a difficult job the next few weeks on many different levels.

First, he has to somehow instill confidence in a Fulham side that hasn’t won in seven matches. With only five matches to go until the end of the season, Sanchez has little time to make a dramatic difference. Ironically, his first match is against Reading at the Majeski Stadium this Saturday. For six years, Sanchez was a player at Reading where he started his football career.

Fulham’s remaining schedule is Blackburn (h), Arsenal (a), Liverpool (h) and Middlesbrough (a). Out of those matches, Middlesbrough is the only team Fulham can beat based on the track record of the west London side.

Fulham currently has 35 points. If they win against Middlesbrough, those 38 points will probably not be enough to escape relegation, so Sanchez will need to work wonders to get points against Arsenal, Liverpool, Blackburn and Reading — all very difficult opponents.

Second, if Sanchez starts to get points from these matches, the question he’s going to get repeatedly asked by the press is whether he’ll be staying as Fulham manager and leaving Northern Ireland. The national squad doesn’t play until August, so the timing for Sanchez and Fulham is extremely convenient right now (imagine Steve McClaren temporarily managing a Premiership side, god forbid; and who would even take him if McClaren was interested).

Hopefully the anticipated antagonism by the press won’t provide Fulham and Sanchez with any unneeded pressure.

Sanchez has a huge mountain to climb in the space of five weeks. However, all Fulham needs is two wins out of their last five. If he can accomplish that, Fulham and Northern Ireland will be thankful. If he fails to do so, he’ll probably return to Northern Ireland with his tail between his legs, and the Northern Irish fans will hope that this then doesn’t have a negative impact on the country’s performance trying to qualify for Euro 2008.

Between August and November 21st when Northern Ireland plays its last Euro 2008 qualifying match, the country plays six matches — which is probably too much to ask for Sanchez to manage both Fulham and Northern Ireland. However, I’m sure Fulham is focused on the short-term right now and trying to avoid relegation. Best of luck to Sanchez in a difficult situation.

Should Chris Coleman have been sacked? If Sanchez can keep Fulham up, I think the answer is yes despite Coleman’s achievements in recent years. At the end of the day, Fulham has to stay up this season to receive the bundle of TV revenue that Premiership sides will get starting next season. Financially, Coleman’s departure may have been necessary.