Andrew Fifield On The Premier League: For all its deserved reputation as a moral vacuum, the Premier League is curiously adept at repairing fractured faith.

Just days after being forced to digest yet another queasily stodgy dish served up by the national team and their hapless head chef of a manager, England's footballing public tucked into a course of its domestic fayre and found the effects on its pallate as refreshing as an icy lemon sorbet.

And no wonder. When set against the grim goings-on in Moscow last week, watching Arsenal's band of pan-continental cavaliers in their pomp, or Wayne Rooney tearing apart yet another bewildered back four, it is easy to shrug off the significance of England's almost certain failure to qualify for a major tournament for the first time since 1994.

England can console itself in the knowledge that international football is no longer an effective gauge of a nation's sporting strength. The plain truth is that there are just two groups of nations who actually relish the world game: the minnows, desperate to show up arrogant, over-bearing neighbours, and that select band of countries - Brazil, Argentina, Holland and a handful of others - whose very identity is defined by their country's football team. For the rest, an international weekend is met with a weary sigh and gigantic shrug of the shoulders.

The vast majority of supporters have long since allowed their passion for the world game to fizzle out. Now, a trip to Wem-ber-ley or, let's face it, Croke Park, is merely an excuse to partake in a bit of bile-soaked spleen-venting, the chance to jeer Fat Frank before he has the chance to mislay a pass or boo the most-capped player in Ireland's history halfway through arguably his best result in charge of the national side.

Players, too, have come to view international trips with a heavy heart. The infuriating habit of Premier League stars of crying off a trip to Kazakhdovia at a moment's notice - often at the behest of their self-serving managers - has been noted on these pages before, but now even those that do make the effort do not try to disguise their contempt.

Craig Bellamy, a man who knows a thing or two about fermenting a poisonous atmosphere having once attacked a team-mate with a golf club, crawled out from the wreckage of Wales' Euro 2008 qualifying campaign to moan about fans shouting nasty things at their idols during the heroic 2-1 victory over San Marino's amateurs last week.

Footballers from Ireland and England have made similar complaints after displays of abject incompetence in recent seasons, as if whinging about their poor bruised egos in the press will somehow enable them to eke out some sympathy. On the contrary, the cumulative effect is just to hammer home how joyless international football has become.

The disillusionment is felt more keenly in England than any of the other home nations for two reasons. First, the country has an innate superiority complex, a legacy of the days of empire when, in the words of Blackadder's General Melchett: "The sun never went down on the British without asking permission first." The fact England have won the World Cup just once, on home soil, and before man even set foot on the moon, is neither here nor there.

The second root cause is the Premier League itself. It is a constant source of wonder to England supporters that a country which boasts the most lucrative, PR-savvy and - in all probability - most exciting domestic set-up in world football can produce a national team which scuttles under the nearest rock when asked to stand firm for 20 minutes against a mediocre Russia side. It is as if all the enterprise, endeavour and energy which are the hallmarks of the average top-flight fixture simply drain away when the players pull on a white jersey.

The received wisdom is that England's failure to qualify for the tournament would represent a disaster of Biblical proportions - not just for the nation itself, but for the whole of Europe, who would somehow have to find a way of coping without the amassed talents of Rio, Roo and Stevie G for four weeks next summer.

Personally, I can see an upside. In the pain stakes, watching England in a major tournament ranks just behind having an abscess drained: the hype is always ludicrously overblown, the football mind-numbingly dull and the recriminations following the inevitable quarter-final exit sourer than Steve McClaren after a dodgy penalty decision.

The prospect of a summer without England muddying the waters of a potentially sparkling tournament is something to celebrate, not mourn. And in the mean time, there is always the Premier League to keep us amused.