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We don’t need more England players in the Premiership – we need fewer.  

The debate over the paucity of England’s performances has thrown up very few innovative ideas. 

Mostly we get demands for a return to the days of no foreigners in the Premiership and a more basic approach to training the kids, rather than messing with all this Academy nonsense.

(The only problem here is that this approach has been tried before – and there’s nothing much to suggest why it would work this time when it didn’t before.)

For others the solution is equally unimaginative – a swift change of manager, but here we have the problem of a lack of obvious candidates, for there is little agreement on who the right man might be – short of the reincarnation of St Cloughie. 

But there are other solutions – radical solutions that we have not tried before.   Like refusing to pick anyone to play for England who currently plays in the Premiership.

The potential in this move cannot be underestimated.    Although many of our top players would not accept a bit of a pay cut to go down a league if they knew this was their only chance of playing for England, others would – and surely these are exactly the sort of players we want playing for England.  

Further, this would give a huge boost to the Championship – for instead of Paul Jewell fearing that a ref’s decision could cost his club relegation and hence £50 million, he would know that relegation could allow him to sign top England players at a discount and enhance his club’s image considerably.

For those players who don’t fancy a drop down a league there is always “abroad” – a place where they might pick up a tip or two on how foreigners do things.   This would be useful since it cannot be a coincidence that the countries that do win international tournaments have many more of their players playing abroad (usually in England) than the English do.

This approach would also change the way in which our top players think about playing for England.  At present the only chance these players have of winning trophies is with their clubs – so why should they care about England?    But those who played in the Championship each week would view playing for England as their one chance of national fame, and so would re-double their efforts in a way that we no longer see with Premiership players.

Finally supporter interest in England’s matches would return.   While many Premiership fans  see international matches as nothing more than the opportunity for one of their stars to return from games battered, bruised, and often broken, supporters of Championship clubs continue the older tradition of nominating their players for international duty.  The desire, drive and enthusiasm is there, and we are foolish not to use it.    

Thus we solve all problems.  Both supporters and players are motivated once again by England games, and the gap between the Premiership and Championship narrows.  What more could anyone want?