A LOT of things have changed over the years but this is the first time that the season will be halted in the Premier League and Championship but not other levels. 

There are so many foreign players now so teams will be seeing all of their stars going away for the World Cup and they’ve had to do the right thing and stop fixtures.

That’s the first time that sort of thing has happened and as a manager, I wonder about how, once squads have been named, and when Gareth Southgate names his next Thursday, every player will want to play for his country.

They especially want to play in the World Cup as it’s only held every four years. As there will be another league game before they go off, managers will be hoping they don’t take their eye off the ball in the club games to make sure they’re 100 per cent fit for the tournament.

Talking about managers, in the old days, when foreign managers started to turn up they usually signed short-term contracts and then tended to go back out of the country.

Now, I noticed that Jurgen Klopp has extended his contract to 2026 and his agent has said he has no intentions of resigning – and all three of the current longest-serving Premiership managers, including Pep Guardiola and Ralph Hasenhuttl, have all come from Europe.

At Aston Villa, Unai Emery has got a deal at least four-and-a-half years long – which is apparently the longest in Villa’s history. Obviously, the foreign managers have realised this is the best league in the world of football and are happy to stay here.

Looking at the top of the Premier League, they all have foreign managers but ironically the team Saints play next is the highest team with a British manager.

Eddie Howe, at Newcastle United, is a manager I have followed closely since knowing him when he was in our area at Bournemouth.

I know him well and when he went off to Newcastle I offered to teach him Geordie. I think his response was ‘Why aye man’.

He has been there for a while now and is enjoying his time there – just look at the league table. You have to take Newcastle very seriously because, at the moment, they have double the points we have got – 24 to our 12.

I don’t know what contract Eddie is on up there but he also signed a new long-term extension this summer, so you’d imagine it would be a similar length to the likes of Klopp and Emery.

Talking about numbers etcetera, it was interesting to notice that after the final round of Champions League results, England has more clubs than any other country in the knockout rounds this season.

All four of Manchester City, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea are into the hat for the draw that takes place next week.

Interestingly, I also noticed that England have got a fixture coming up next year with Scotland at Hampden Park. In the old days, we would have said ‘so what?’.

That’s because at the end of every season British teams would get together and play each other, but that doesn’t happen anymore.

This game, at Hampden Park next September, is to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first international ever in 1872 between Scotland and England. The first game was a 0-0 draw in front of 4,000 supporters at Hamilton Crescent in Partick.

My memories of games between these two countries are the passion of the supporters, particularly at Hampden Park.

When my dear old friend, Jock Stein, was a manager, he was a true gentleman and regularly rang young managers to ask if they needed help. He will always be sadly missed.

I would be interested to know if there is still that connection and if those kinds of meetings still happen between managers, although the League Managers Association are always there to help if needed.

Like Eddie Howe and myself, you more often see managers where the clubs are close to each other no matter what league they are in. It was always good to pop along to a local lower-division game and you never knew who else would be sitting with you.

As I’ve said before, those get-togethers were often more interesting than the games themselves and sometimes finished with transfer dealings!  

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