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" I find the whole thing a pity that it is not an English, or British, manager. It doesn't have to be English in my sense, it could be a British manager - someone like Mark Hughes for instance is Welsh and could quite easily take on that situation. I think it's a pity and I think it's a shame, the whole Italian back-room staff coming in as well, it doesn't go nicely with me at the moment with being English myself and wanting English people involved it. I can understand why they may have moved across from the English manager side but to complete the whole back-room staff, which is what they appear to be doing with non-English coaches I think is a shame.
" My guess would be that the first selection that he makes would not be too much different from what you or I or other people would pick. I think you are going to be looking at the choice of goalkeepers, at Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Ashley Cole, Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney. They are the boys that have been in that team consistently, maybe it's saying to them that they have got to perform that little bit better. We're very much club-orientated in this country and it's very much about your club rather than your country and I think that is the major problem, or where the problem lies, in that everybody is more concerned about it.
" We won't talk about England football now once the league programme starts again this weekend, they'll get the (Fabio) Capello thing out of the way in the Sundays. Then all the press will be about the Premier League, then suddenly it will revert for a whole week in February when the Switzerland game comes on and so on. We just chop and change so much with our allegiances but it's very much the allegiances to the club that count.
" I think those players are good players, we'll see them play very well this weekend, we are going to look at those two big games on Sunday aren't we with the big players playing. That's what you are going to see, I found it quite strange that no-one actually picked up that after the Croatia game three of the players that didn't play against Croatia - Ashley Cole, John Terry and Rio Ferdinand all played for their clubs on the Saturday. No-one actually mentioned that fact, I don't know why that was myself, I found it odd that three days later they are fit. So they are the things that I think need to be adjusted and looked at.
" I also think though that it is not going to be easy for any manager, whatever nationality he is, to stamp authority or shape or cohesion into a team when he literally only gets them for three or four days prior to matches. I think you've got to be looking at a more international thinking set-up rather than the club thing that happens in this country. I think that when players don't want to play for their country it is possibly wealth as much as anything.
" They have probably got the wealth and it is not that important, the wealth comes into their lives. I find it amazing that people don't want to play for their country, or work for their country, or be involved in anything to do with the country. I think that is the highest accolade that anybody can be afforded, there would have to be a very, very good reason why I would say that I don't want to work or play for England. I think you've got to want to do that and I can't understand why people don't. "
" We've got an excellent home record to their away record so something comes to a head doesn't it. I think that is the case, it's who can apply themselves on that particular day but it is a terrific game. If I can step a week further as well then we have got Swansea the following week and those two games become very, very big games for us to try to get points from and sustain our place in the top six. We've got a team that is in good form away from home but they are playing us in decent form at Brunton Park. There are a lot of goals that have been involved in games both by Carlisle and Leyton Orient and hopefully tomorrow is not only going to be entertaining but it is going to be successful for us.
" He (Joe Anyinsah) has got to go back and he can't go anywhere else. I've spoken to Alan Irvine and he is going to have a look at Joe when he gets him back down there for the final 12 or 13 days of this month, then we'll see what the position is after that. I had a quick word with Joe today though, we'll stay in touch, I'll stay in touch with the people at Preston and we'll see what happens with him.
" He (Joe Widdowson) is 19, he has played regularly in West Ham's reserves, he has come through their ranks at the football club. Like a lot of young players at Premier League clubs though their way gets blocked by senior professionals. With all the money awash in the Premier League, West Ham, or other clubs, will say that they will go and buy another player for £6 million. Which is very little to those clubs, they can go and buy an international full-back and it stops the progress of these young kids.
" So we have followed Joe, our new scout Stuart Gray has seen him three times this season and said that we need to have a look at this young man and West Ham are very happy for us to do that. He'll play at Morecambe and hopefully we'll be able to pick it up a little bit later, it's just for him to see us and us to see him at the moment. He has looked decent in training and if you want to get a measure on the young man, he is 19, he played on Monday night against Chelsea reserves.
" He was on the train on Tuesday, he was in Carlisle on Tuesday afternoon and he watched the juniors play on Tuesday night. That is a measure of a young man who wants to progress in his career I think and if that is a measure of him at all then the kid has got a chance. He wanted to be here and he made sure he was and he has looked decent in training so far, but we'll obviously see more in the game on Monday.
" We've identified our transfer targets now, we've listed that and we've had chats with the staff and the coaching people and the scouting people, we've got some ideas on what we would like to do. There will be situations occurring that we can't legislate for at the moment with clubs and with players. There might be one or two new names that crop up who we didn't know were available so you have got to have an open mind on it. We have certainly done a lot of homework though on the players we would like to bring in, and of course there may be good reasons why we can't and we've got to move on to other targets. That's just the main course of what we do all the time anyway though.
" Anyone who didn't come last week missed a good game, it was a pity that there weren't more to see it because it was a terrific performance by the team. We've talked about that this morning on the training ground and said that if we can repeat that then we will be making people come into this football club and support. We'd like to see a few more in and we'd like to put on a similar performance, but all I can try to do is get the team prepared and get them out there to play as well as possible. If they can perform then people will realise that they are missing something decent going on. Everyone is fit and well tomorrow which again is terrific for me. "