These days I don’t have any contact with the players at Saints, but like any true supporter I watch them from afar and make my own opinions.

I have always thought that Steven Davis is the sort of player I would like to have in my squad.

He plays in that important midfield general type position, never gives less than 100 per cent and looks like a leader.

Every club needs one of these types on the pitch, and whether it’s the influx of so many foreign players around the Premier League or it is because of the movement of players, a lot of clubs that I watch seem to have players who are undoubtedly skilful but seem to be playing more for themselves than the team.

Steven Davis does not fall into that category.

Before the game against Burnley, I dropped a little note which hopefully made its way to him in the dressing room.

It was to say many congratulations on receiving the MBE honour, and also his 100th cap for Northern Ireland.

Believe me, not many players reach that figure for any country and it shows the respect everyone has for him both on and off the field.

I also said in the note ‘please give my best wishes to your international manager, Michael O’Neill.’ He has done a magnificent job to get the team as far as he has and the whole of the country are behind him and will be delighted if they can make the World Cup finals for the first time since 1986.

Bearing in mind that in the current squad there are only four Premier League players it is all the more remarkable.

I also said in the note that I know better than most how difficult the job is having been there myself.

In my day I think there were about six or seven players in the top division, but with due respect they weren’t all top quality which you would hope for at international level.

It would really be an excellent achievement for the manager and players to get to Russia.

Having managed in all the four divisions I remember only too well how lower league clubs treat cup ties as being very important.

As we have seen in the last year or two some of the bigger and richer clubs with foreign coaches and owners don’t seem to take even the FA Cup so seriously, often turning out reserve teams.

  • An experiment was brought in last season when a third cup competition, the Checkatrade Trophy, was changed so that smaller clubs would be involved in groups of four and most of them would have one Premier League club.

On paper this seemed a great idea where a club near the bottom of what I would call the old fourth division could look forward to an evening game with a top Premier League club.

The main rule is that the big club are mainly only allowed to play under-21 players and this gives the coaches the opportunity to see the youngsters in action because not many now are getting first team football.

With so much money available clubs are able to go around the world and buy ready-made talent rather than see academy type players come through.

However, looking at the results this week, which finalised the group stage meaning each club had played their three games with the top two going through, almost all of the big clubs failed to qualify.

Even Man City under-21s finished bottom of a group which had also contained Bradford, Rotherham and Chesterfield.

The other thing which surprised me was that hardly any of the attendances topped 1,500.

The original idea doesn’t seem to have worked.

You can’t fool the supporters, who probably realised that they were not going to turn up and watch superstars from the big clubs, so why waste their money?

The other thing to me is that under-21 now seems to be the level where youngsters are not expected to be in the first team.

When I look back at the likes of messers Le Tissier, Shearer, Benali, the Wallace brothers etc, they were first team players when they were teenagers and by the age of 21 were usually regulars.

Will the game be better for this? Who knows, but as far as the England team is concerned with only about 25 per cent of the players in the Premier League being English I don’t think Gareth Southgate would agree.