Listen to Holloway sound off!

The Plymouth manager gives his inimitable views on football and life in general in his weekly column.

This week he gives his views on where it went wrong for England in Russia and the booing of Frank Lampard.

He also talks about being bilingual, putting Bristol on the map and the craziest footballer he's ever played with.

I thought we looked quite comfortable in the first half but then we had a little spell where we didn't go and close them. We stood off them and you can't do that, particularly on an astroturf pitch.

We got deeper and deeper and it was looking inevitable that they would score. We had all those attacking players on there, but because we scored first we were trying to protect the lead.

I think that's been our fundamental problem in the last few tournaments - we get too deep and when the ball goes through to a forward, we don't press it well enough. We concede ground and that's not the English way of playing.

Rooney did his best to keep the ball

I've always believed a big part of defending is attacking, because if you're attacking their goal, they can't attack yours. The loss of Ashley Cole was huge, because Joe Cole comes inside on his right foot and Ashley flies up past him.

The pitch didn't help, but you can't use that as an excuse. The damage was done a few months ago when we drew with Macedonia.

In recent months we've had a very good turnaround and we're playing much better. It was just that 10-minute spell. They looked dangerous and I was screaming: "Get tighter!"

We didn't prevent them from turning and they slotted little balls through us two or three times, which with the amount of bodies we had in there was criminal.

And what is Wayne Rooney doing giving a penalty away on the edge of our box? If he'd been trying to stop it at source a bit further up the pitch, I'd have been more than happy.

I want people to stop blaming the manager and have a right good look at what the players are doing. Steve will have asked them to do things and the bottom line is they didn't do them well enough.

If we don't qualify, then unfortunately Steve will go because his job is to win games and get us to Euro 2008 - although I don't think it's all over yet. You can't presume that Russia are going to win in Israel - that's a hell of a tough thing to go and do.

But I don't think as a nation we should expect to be there. We've got to earn the right to be there. Some of these players have got to dust themselves down like the rugby boys did and get back to what they're good at. For me, too many of them didn't do that.

Have a whiff of that, lads

They're nothing like the rugby boys - I think they've got to wake up and smell the coffee. I'm sorry but I don't see them digging in, I don't see them fighting and battling.

Where was Gerrard on Wednesday? Where was he when we needed to dig in? I felt we lacked a leader out there and we had too many inexperienced players, which was forced on the manager because of injuries.

You can't blame Joleon Lescott - he's going to be a very good player, Micah Richards will be a fantastic player and they're all going to be better for that experience, but we missed certain people in certain areas.

If anyone boos him then I think they're crazy. It's rubbish, absolutely pathetic. He's one of the best players in the world.

OK, he didn't have a good World Cup, but it's not his fault that he was being picked with Steven Gerrard.

I don't like the fact that we all start chipping in and moaning. The England job is the hardest job in the world - you can never please everybody.

Leave him alone!

We're a nation that should be supporting our sportsmen and women. How many people watched our rugby team get beaten 36-0 and gave us one iota of hope?

Now their manager's great and he's going to get a new contract. Three weeks ago he was rubbish!

And that's what's wrong. He wasn't rubbish then, the team got it wrong, and look what they've done since. It's all about character, turning things around and believing in yourselves.

I take my hat off to the rugby players. It's about time some of our footballers stopped poncing around driving their flash cars and got down to business.

That's a huge one, isn't it? (No pun intended - Ed)

Is there an obesity problem? I'm looking around and thinking, is there an obesity problem? Is there a drink problem? There might be a pastie problem in Plymouth!

Who you calling fat?

What we've got to do is stop young people twiddling their thumbs on these stupid games - their thumbs must be so fit.

Get them out in the fresh air like we used to do when we were kids.

I don't know if the football players of the future are developing these days, because kids are all in playing these stupid Nintendo games, or whatever they are.

And if they're not doing that, they're texting. Get them out there moving - and check their diets. You are what you eat.

Legendaryma77g: "Hi Ollie, I'm a Bristol City fan but you know us Reds can't admit we love ya! They are saying Mark Regan talks a lot for the England rugby team, Justin Lee Collins just won funniest comedian, and the BBC keep letting you sound off on their website. Are Bristolians getting a reputation for being up front?"

Let's hope we get a reputation for something. For years anyone with an accent like mine would just get ridiculed.

I'm very proud of my accent and hopefully some of us Bristolians are talking sense.

606: DEBATE Ask Ollie a question

Justin Lee Collins is fantastic, an absolutely brilliant bloke. I went to a do once and no-one laughed because he was too blue. No-one except my wife and I. It was hilarious, we were the only ones who were sniggering away.

So get on with the West Country, me old friend. Your team's doing well, but not when we play you....hopefully.

GOOD1878: "I'd like to know your take on the suggestion of limiting the number of foreign players to, say, five or six per team. On a lighter note, do you think Wenger and Jose were more successful because they could speak a number of languages. How many languages can you speak?"

I can speak two, but one of them isn't a lot of good to most footballers because it's sign language.

I do think being able to speak other languages helps, though, because a being a good coach has a lot to do with communication.

I wish I'd concentrated more at school and I wish us English were far less lazy than we are, because I think we expect people to talk our language wherever we go.

Mind your language

As for limiting the number of foreign players, it's almost like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. They should have done it straight away.

It's going to be very hard to implement it but I am an advocate of it.

I've got some Hungarians and French in my team but where are my young players coming from?

When you've got the likes of Chelsea taking Scott Sinclair from Bristol Rovers, it's going to be very difficult for all the smaller clubs, because the better English players are getting stolen away when they're 15 or 16.

How are Premier League clubs like Wigan going to manage? Their young players are just not going to be good enough, so it's going to be really difficult.

Kevpeanut: "Ollie, great column, has me in stitches every week! A lot of people think you are a bit mad?! Who was the "maddest" footballer you ever played with and why?"

A bloke called Pete Cawley, who was at Bristol Rovers and Wimbledon. He was very intelligent but he'd get bored very easily and do some really stupid things.

He had a flat in Bristol where he'd have a water fight with some mates. And I mean they'd fill up dustbins full of water and throw them at each other.

"Hi, Pete Cawley"

What he didn't realise that the hairdressers below his flat was getting soaked through.

On another occasion he came round to our house having tried to cut his hair, and my wife, Kim, had to save him.

But the worst thing he did was to get a piece of tubigrip - which should be used as a knee or ankle support - pull it over his head, cut some eyeholes in it and stick some grass on the top. And he trained with it on all morning.

When he took it off, he had bruise marks all over his face where the elastication on the strapping was. He looked like a tiger. It was ridiculous. But he was a very funny chap.

He was assistant manager at Wycombe for a while and now he's training to be a cabbie. Anything could happen if Pete's your cabbie!

Ian Holloway was talking to Chris Charles.