HERE we are five days into the new Nationwide League season, and just two days away from the start of the new Premiership term, and we've already had an international game.

England tackled Holland in a friendly at White Hart Lane last night, but for the life of me, I am completely baffled that such a game was arranged before any of our leading players had got their first footing in the new campaign.

No wonder Liverpool manager Gerard Houllier had previously kicked up a fuss. The likes of him and Leeds United boss David O'Leary must be tearing their hair out at the timing of the midweek friendly between England and the Dutch.

How clubs can be expected to be able to prepare properly for the start of the season when they have been without a large part of their respective squads in the very final week before they are due to kick off the 2001-02 season, I just don't know? It's beyond belief.

It's the clubs that pay the wages of these players and they are being deprived of their players. That's not fair on the clubs or the supporters, who are paying good money to see those players on a regular basis.

Take the two Premiership clubs whom we have met most recently.

Middlesbrough had their new signings Jonathan Greening and David Wilson with the Under-21s, while with the full England squad were Boro's Gareth Southgate and Ugo Ehiogu. Even their manager Steve McClaren was away with the national set-up.

Then there's Leeds. They had Rio Ferdinand, albeit he was injured, Danny Mills and Alan Smith away with the full England squad, besides having four players - Robbie Keane, Stephen McPhail, Ian Harte and Gary Kelly - all away with the Republic of Ireland for the World Cup game against Croatia.

A World Cup qualifying match is obviously going to have its demands, but for England to have a friendly at this stage of the season is simply baffling. I just feel it's unacceptable.

The argument goes that it is all about preparation for the World Cup clash next month in Germany, but surely the powers that be had all summer to fix up a friendly against Holland. Why now, in the week leading up to the Premiership kick-off?

They could have had it a couple of weeks ago. They've had all summer to have arranged a friendly.

One of the problems now is that there is so much more international football, partly because there are so many more countries taking part. And there's now so many players of different nationalities playing in the Premiership that when there are midweek internationals some managers have lost almost their entire squads for that week. That can't be right.

Steve Bruce (the Crystal Palace manager) was complaining just this week that the Chinese lad they have there could be away for 12 weeks or so during which he could miss 20 games. Yet the club is paying his wages every week.

We've always had this club v country issue but something has got to be done.

I believe one solution would be splitting the season into two and having a break in the summer and also the winter.

With so many nations now playing international football in different competitions there's got to be some sort of uniformity to be found somewhere.

I know Fifa looked to try and get everybody into line into some sort of structure, so to have a break in the summer and winter would help.

Effectively we now get two months off in the summer. If we split that up then I would like to see all internationals matches played during those windows.

Most European countries have a break in the winter anyway. These days it's not simply about the weather being bad because pitches are much better now and we are not getting as many severe winters as we used to do. But we could be using that break to stage international matches, which would limit the effects on the clubs.

If a club has 12-15 internationals of various nationalities they could be flying all over the world at different times. But if you know that international games are going to be played in a specific period in the summer or winter then everyone knows what to expect.