What a great result for the Albion against Wolves last week.

Like a lot of fans, I felt their chances of staying up had virtually disappeared after their failure to beat Wimbledon at home in what a lot of people regarded as a 'must win' fixture.

How wrong we all were. They were superb last week by all accounts and what must have pleased Steve Coppell more than anything was that at 2-0 they didn't sit back.

Instead they kept pushing forward in the second half, got another couple of goals and could have won more convincingly in the end.

Their next five games don't look as daunting as their recent fixture list and if they are going to get out of trouble this is the time to make a move, hopefully starting against Bradford City.

I must admit I don't know too much about Ivar Ingimarsson, the midfielder they signed on loan from Wolves this week.

But most of the players from Iceland who have made a living in this country have been solid, reliable and extremely hard-working and those sort of characteristics, allied to the skills of someone like Bobby Zamora, could help Albion go a long way towards making sure they stay in Division One this season.

Kids give Sven a reason to smile.

Poor old Sven-Goran Eriksson. He tried to be all things to all men this week and ended up copping a load of stick after England lost 3-1 to Australia in their friendly.

Sven is all too aware what the top club managers think about international friendlies.

He was one before he took the England job and he'll doubtless return to club management when he packs it in so, on the face of it, his idea to play two different teams, resting his star names to keep the clubs sweet and taking a look at the emerging youngsters, seemed to be a good one.

But when the so-called first team come off trailing 2-0 then all of a sudden the coach is made to look a bit of a dummy.

To be fair, England didn't deserve to be losing 2-0 at the break and in the second half the youngsters came on and, particularly in midfield and up front, made a good impression.

The England goal was terrific, both in build-up and execution, and at 2-1 I thought they would go on and equalise. But England defended poorly all night and Australia made the game safe near the end.

Of course Sven can't legislate for the mistakes England made at the back. David James should have claimed the cross which resulted in their first goal and Rio Ferdinand was caught with his pants down by Harry Kewell for the second.

The plusses? Well I thought Wayne Rooney did incredibly well for a 17-year-old making his debut.

It takes six or seven games to get used to international football and the same applies to Jermaine Jenas who also did extremely well, but they are stars of the future, there is no doubt about that.

I was impressed with Francis Jeffers too. He took his goal really well and it makes you think what he could achieve if he was playing regular club football instead of being a bit-part player at Arsenal.

He's over his injury problems and looks really sharp and it may be that he has to leave Highbury to further his England ambitions.

Having said that, at the moment he looks much more of a threat up front than Michael Owen.

I thought Owen's performance bore all the hallmarks of a striker desperate for a goal and short on confidence. I had similar experiences like that myself during my career and I tell you, it ain't much fun.

People were saying beforehand that performances rather than the result was the most important thing, but that's utter nonsense.

England have two big Euro 2004 qualifiers coming up and, after the setback against Macedonia in October, they needed a confidence boost.

Instead, I suspect the only people celebrating were the bar owners in Earls Court as all the London-based Aussies celebrated long into the night. Beating England at cricket and tennis is bad enough, but now it's football as well. Oh dear.

Sven probably needed a drop of the hard stuff as well. He's got plenty of head-scratching ahead of him before the Liechtenstein game at the end of March, but I suspect Rooney, Jeffers and Jenas will keep their places.

They enhanced their reputations, but quite a few of their team-mates did not.

Saturday February 15