Players Under The Microscope / Gary Speed / 19 October 2007 /

Bolton's veteran midfielder on England's uphill task, John Toshack's midweek comments and looking at the man in the mirror

I'm a Welsh man and very proud of it - but not one of those who is smirking and smiling at the thought that England probably now won't qualify for Euro 2008.

I love sitting down to watch all the games from big tournaments and without England there it simply won't have quite the same impact and interest. Like it or loathe it they are one of the World's strongest football nations and you want all the best sides in action at World Cups or European Championships.

I've felt all along that they would qualify - as have a good few other people because the odds have always been very short despite their early problems. And clearly Betfair punters still reckon they will scrape through because their price to qualify is still pretty short at 2.94. I'd like to believe they are right, but in the real world I can't see Russia slipping up in Israel. Without wanting to be controversial, those two countries are pretty close to each other and I think Russia will get the win they need and then be certain to beat Andorra in their last match.

I know there are different views on England's performance in Russia but I personally thought they played well and were unlucky to lose. They had a ten minute spell when they had to deal with a lot of pressure and that will always happen in games. Sometimes you scrape through that period by the skin of your teeth and go on to win and everybody forgets you struggled for a while. On this occasion England had no luck with a dodgy penalty decision and ultimately that has cost them dear.

It just goes to show how if you don't start any tournament or League well you are always struggling to make up ground. That's true in the Premier League, we know full well the situation we are in at Bolton will mean we will really have to perform for the rest of the campaign and not just for ten or 15 games if we are going to achieve a respectable final position. It's even true in the Coca Cola League where there are 46 games - just look at Leeds after starting with minus 15 points. They've done incredibly well but as soon as they only drew a game they have drifted back towards the bottom places. And that makes it even more true of a small qualifying group. England lost points against Macedonia and Israel early on and that has come back to haunt them.

Inevitably Steve McClaren is under pressure but I think they would be wrong to change him now. In the games before going to Russia he'd begun to grow into the job and he didn't do a lot wrong in Moscow either. If Steven Gerrard's chance had gone in England would have won at a canter and he would be hailed as the master tactician. If you change the manager it means another two years for another new man to settle into the job and that won't help anybody.

All the international managers are under pressure and that goes with the territory. I know there's a lot of debate about John Toshack and people say he was wrong to publicly come out and say the players were too pampered. I don't agree.

I think he's probably quite right that these days managers do try everything to make sure the players get the very best. The best hotels, food, travel and so on. And that does mean that sometimes those same players can need a reality check.

We all have to go to work to earn our money. As footballers we've got one of the best jobs that pays the best amounts but there's a point where you have to do the work to earn that rather than blame other things and maybe Tosh felt that his players needed a bit of reminder of that. I can think of a couple of times in my career where I was maybe guilty of taking things a bit for granted and you do need something to shake you from it. At the end of my time at Leeds I think I'd been there for ten years, wasn't playing well, and I was trying to say it was everybody else's fault but mine. When I moved to Everton it was a bit of a reality check and Joe Royle got me into the idea that you always have to start with the man in the mirror. Now I think that when things go wrong in the planning - the bus arrives late, the plane is delayed, whatever - you have to use it as a motivation to perform rather than an excuse not to.

With all that in mind I'm sorry but I don't want to say anything else about the Bolton situation at the moment because I've got to concentrate on my own job of training and playing well.

My old Wales boss Mark Hughes will also be trying to use problems as a motivation this weekend because Blackburn now have serious problems up front with injuries to both Roque Santa Cruz and Jason Roberts. It makes it tempting to think Reading, who are beginning to get their game together at the moment, could be value at 3.6 to get a draw at Ewood or as long as 6.8 to win.

The other big value bet is for Aston Villa to beat Manchester United at odds of 5.1. It's only a couple of weeks since Martin O'Neill's side beat Chelsea at home and they will fancy their chances against anybody at Villa Park.

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