In light of the ridiculous idea that Adnan Januzaj is either good enough to play for England at the moment or eligible for such an honour, now seems like as good a time as any to put forward the merits of the Championship as the league which best represents what English Football should be all about.

Before we get to that, however, it’s worth saying that England were exceptional on Tuesday against Poland – easily the best performance from England’s national side since Sven’s ‘Golden Generation’ ripped Germany apart in 2001. People will put forward their reasons for the sudden improvement which has seen Roy’s Boys go from being utterly pants in Ukraine to cohesive and exciting twice in four days against both Montenegro and Poland. The real reason is simple. England went back to basics. Forget all the modern rubbish about ‘getting the ball down’ or the emphasis on retaining possession or the frankly ridiculous idea that ‘the Busquets Role’ is the key to all success. The offside rule may have changed, the pass-back rule may have changed, the number of substitutes allowed may have changed. One rule, though, has never changed:

The side which scores more goals over a period of ninety minutes will win the game.

Simple enough. Look at the Collins Dictionary definition of the beautiful game of ‘football’: “a game played with a round ball played by two teams competing to kick a ball into each other’s goal.” It’s such a simple game. There’s no reason to jazz it up into something it’s not. It’s played everywhere from London to Los Angeles to the smallest and most deprived village in The Central African Republic. Cricket and rugby are fantastic sports too. Yet, where is their global appeal? It isn’t there. The appeal that football has is because of its simplicity and, compared to cricket especially, its lack of technical requirements. People have and will continue to argue with me over the amount of technical skill required to excel as a professional footballer.

My argument is this: take a Conference side full of part-timers with a 6ft 7in striker playing up top alongside a bloke who can do 100m in 11 seconds but works in a post office during the week. Put this side up against a Premier League side. They’re not the favourites to win obviously but they have a genuine opportunity to upset the odds. Alternatively, stick Middlesex County Cricket Club up against Wimbledon Cricket Club (winner of this year’s Club National Championship). 999 times out of 1000, Middlesex beat Wimbledon because cricket is a game which requires skill and technical ability. Football is an extremely simple game.

But the growing frustration is that managers, supporters of certain sides, even certain players seem to forget this – or even ignore this blatantly obvious fact. I don’t care if Team X can put together 65 passes in a row or if Team Y have two ball-playing centre-halves. Why do you think Barcelona have won everything there is to win in the last five years? Is it because Pique, Puyol, Xavi and Busquets fulfil the above roles? No. Obviously they are integral parts of the side but replace Messi with Ade Akinbiyi and this Great Barcelona side wins nothing. Simples.

If Messi scores 73 goals in a single season (as he did in 2012), Barcelona will win everything (as they did). It’s such an obvious hypothesis and what Barcelona do is hardly rocket-science but is dressed up to be by those who have never seen a prolific goalscorer. Look closer to home – Arsenal’s invincible side. I couldn’t care less how beautiful their intricate triangles were between Bergkamp, Henry and Pires. They weren’t actually that strong in certain positions – think Lauren, Lehmann, Edu, Cygan – by no means the best in their positions in the League. Yet, Thierry Henry was at the peak of his powers. Gilberto Silva, Sol Campbell, Kolo Toure and the outstanding Patrick Vieira did the dirty work terrifically well. Campbell and Toure were no Maldini and Nesta. They knew that their job was to tackle, head, read the game and give it to those in front of them. This meant that the superb front four could do their job – score the goals that win you games of football.

Yet now, watching the likes of Manchester City squander chance after chance by trying to walk the ball in or nutmeg another defender before finally getting it across the line is so frustrating. Liverpool have as good a chance as they’ve ever had to really make a charge for the title this year. Will they or will they play the ‘philosophy’ card? What the hell is this magic philosophy that Brendan Rodgers talks about? There doesn’t appear to be any magic formula, any never-before-seen ideas in Liverpool’s play.

I’m all for style as well as substance but why this acceptance from some sides that just style will do? I found the sacking of Tony Pulis stunningly stupid and ridiculous on so many levels. Who in their right mind sacks a bloke who has taken you from the very definition of Championship mediocrity to the Europa League – a status far higher than that which a club of Stoke’s stature could ever have dreamt of eight years ago just because he’s not that into tiki-taka football? Rubbish. And then, to replace him with Mark Hughes, a man who tried and failed to get QPR, a side of similar stature, to play in this fashionable way. It’s absurd and totally senseless.

Why are Hull City under Steve Bruce finding life so relatively easy? Why has Big Sam Allardyce never been relegated? The answer is so straightforward. It’s all about the basics. As much as we all love Ian Holloway, why are Palace struggling so badly, why did his Blackpool side have a defence like the leakiest of leaky roofs? Their budget is similar to that of Hull so the money answer – the safe answer – does not add up. It’s all about the basics. They don’t do them well enough. In the Championship, Burnley and QPR have conceded the fewest goals. Guess where they find themselves. First and second. Mourinho’s first title-winning side at Chelsea conceded 15 goals. The chant “boring, boring Chelsea” was created. When Blackburn sacked Allardyce because “we want good football” (the Chairman’s words), his side was comfortable in 13th place. Six months later they had stayed up on the final day of the season.

This sounds so trivial but England as a nation – not just a footballing nation – has always prided itself on its passion, its commitment, its workmanship. Who’s the greatest English footballer of all-time? 9 out of 10 will say Bobby Moore. Was he a silky winger? No, he wasn’t. Think of Lord Kitchener and ‘Your Country Needs You.’ With the greatest respect to those who run the Premier League, they are businessmen – very successful businessmen in fact – but that doesn’t make them ‘football people’ (to use Harry Redknapp’s term).

Their sole purpose is to make money out of the Premier League. They couldn’t care less how the England side gets on at the World Cup and they proved this with their refusal to join the FA Commission last week. And with this refusal, the Premier League will continue to be an organisation which saps the passion, commitment, workmanship and honesty out of English Football. And make no mistake there is a huge difference between English Football and French or Spanish or Italian Football. We created this game. We might not be the best side in the world but for such a proud nation, the way in which the Football Association has bowed down at the feet of the Premier League for the last twenty years is a joke.

This is where the Championship comes in. Look at the England side on Tuesday and you’ll see quickly why the attitude was there and why suddenly England players seemed to love playing for their country again:

Joe Hart started at Shrewsbury (League 1)

Chris Smalling started at Maidstone United (Isthmian Premier Division)

Phil Jagielka started at Sheffield United (League 1 now)

Leighton Baines started at Wigan when they were in League 1

Andros Townsend has been on loan at Yeovil, MK Dons, Leyton Orient, Ipswich, Birmingham, Millwall, Watford and Leeds in the lower divisions

Danny Welbeck made his professional debut for Preston North End

The point here is clear. These are guys (less so in Welbeck’s case) who have grown up with a dream of representing their country. It is so intangible that when the dream becomes a reality, the pride really shines through. Rickie Lambert’s reaction to his debut goal against Scotland was just fantastic to see. I mean, he used to work in a beetroot factory. His progression has been unbelievable and nobody would ever deny him his opportunity.

Just watching him play, you can tell that he has worked his way up the ladder. Nobody that has ever watched a Championship game can deny the passion, the honesty, the commitment that gets put in each week by pros like Lambert. The reason QPR wanted rid of the likes of Bosingwa and Taarabt in the summer wasn’t because they wouldn’t be able to hack it – of course they could. Taarabt ran this division last time he was in it and Jose Bosingwa, for all of his detractors (and there are many), has 59 Portugal caps and two Champions League medals. But, this is league is more than just about talent. It’s about two games in four days, playing the whole way through the Christmas period, playing in front of half-empty stadia in the North-East on an icy December evening. It’s the toughest league in the world. It is the most English league in England.

It’s the League in this country that best represents English culture. When Martin Taylor broke Eduardo’s leg he was vilified as some sort of footballing Satan. Why? Because for fans of Premier League clubs which have lost their ‘Englishness’, the idea that someone might go in for a challenge with some commitment, with some zest and force, is an alien one to them. Of course, I wouldn’t wish what happened to Eduardo on anyone but to vilify Martin Taylor, a real pro who has made himself a career in the lower league as a proper English centre-half full of passion and desire, is verging on the inhumane in its unjustness. The football in a country should represent its culture. The Championship does this. The Premier League doesn’t. The Spanish are stylish, the Germans are efficient, the Brazilians bring a carnival atmosphere to proceedings.

Of course, nobody wants to see a return to the days where hooliganism was rife and fans feared for their lives but a middle ground must be found between those days and nowadays because the Premier League is a monster. It is killing English football. Who the hell goes to a football match to sit on a cushioned seat and have salt beef carved in front of you in a box before kick-off? It’s a joke, a travesty. If you want an away ticket to the Emirates, you can get one for £62 – that’s five times more than what Bobby Moore was earning per week in 1966. Craven Cottage has a neutral stand. Yes, really, a neutral stand! Here’s an idea for these fans. Go down to Huish Park in Somerset and see if you can get a ticket at Yeovil. You’ve got no chance. They’re proud of their local team’s presence in the Championship for the first time ever – a league that, financially, they have no right to be in. They pack the fans in to the rafters to give their side the best chance of winning. Away fans have to stand – not a concept I necessarily agree with given its history – but it creates an atmosphere and it makes the occasion uncomfortable for the away team – which every ground should do.

One of the features at Brighton’s fancy new home (the Amex Stadium) is the presence of lights in the away end which are switched to the colours of the away side to make the day more enjoyable for those travelling fans. It defeats the point. Football is a sport, a game. The League system creates competition. That is the key word. It’s meant to be competitive. The only objective from clubs should be to win. If you want to go and relax on a Saturday afternoon, then football’s not for you. Go to the West End and watch a matinee or go to the cinema. But don’t go to the football for a quiet afternoon. That’s not what it was invented for.

The FA gave 20% of Wembley to the away side on Tuesday – this is the nation that created the famed ‘Poznan.’ They know how to make an atmosphere without giving them the capacity of the Liberty Stadium to do it in.

For me, though, two recent issues have highlighted what I’ve been discussing here. Firstly, the Januzaj dilemma. For me, the only question is whether he is United’s third or fourth choice left-winger. He has started two Premier League games in his life and scored twice against a side in disarray at the bottom of the league. What’s the fuss? The fact that he has not come out immediately and said ‘I want to play for England’ should be the end of the matter. If he’s not that desperate to represent the famous Three Lions then he can jog on. Simple as. It’s an honour to be asked, not a favour on his part to put himself forward for. The other issue is ‘senseofhumourgate’ as it shall be known.

It’s an insult to Roy Hodgson’s integrity as a man who has managed teams in ten different countries to suggest that his comment was racially motivated. That, combined with the fact that some self-important member of the group let it slip to a journalist, for me, sums up the state of English football. It’s a mess. This should be a rare great week for English football where we can come together to celebrate what was the most passionate and complete England performance for more than a decade. Instead, we have this load of rubbish to contend with because the England manager dared to tell a joke – to calm and ease the atmosphere in a room full of young men who know that their next 45 minutes will reflect the mood of a nation and their own reputations.

Greg Dyke has set up a commission which will doubtless try its best to fix English football and change the core curriculum and youth coaching methods. We wish him luck with that but I have one much simpler suggestion for him: just look at the Championship.