Our supporters may have been wondering why Bermuda Hogges left some of our more experienced players on the substitutes bench against Cleveland City Stars.

Well, the answer is simple. They hadn't attended training and provided us with an explanation why.

Sure, we could have probably done with their help on the pitch but we don't regret our decision one bit.

We don't mind players missing training if they let us know beforehand and there's a legitimate explanation.

But for a player just not to call us lacks respect and so they were left out for disciplinary reasons.

They must realise this is a professional environment and nowhere else in the world would a player expect to play if he had just not bothered to show up at a training session.

I doubt any other team in the league has these sorts of problems, although I do feel on the whole our players are beginning to develop a more professional outlook.

I thought we started the game reasonably well against City Stars but then they scored a spectacular goal to knock the wind out of our sails.

They gave a very professional performance and had a business-like maturity to them.

Cleveland did the simple things very well and smothered us whenever we had possession of the ball.

Most of our players are now preparing for the national team's matches against Barbados and I imagine we'll then learn which players we'll lose for the Trinidad matches.

Those players not selected are still training with us and took part in a friendly against Bermuda Under-20s national team earlier this week, which we won 8-1.

To be honest I wasn't overly impressed with us and they could have taken a two-goal lead.

It's difficult to recreate the sort of tempo of physicality you're exposed to in the USL-D2 when you come up against fellow domestic players.

Bermudians tend to allow opposing players too much time on the ball and are not as direct.

I thought Keith Jennings, who has joined us on trial, showed his undoubted talent and Lloyd Holder led the line well.

We're taking a look at a number of local players to help us fulfill our next few fixtures while the majority of our players are on national team duty. Their attitude will be almost as important as their ability.

We should still be reasonably well stocked in our attacking positions with the likes of Aljame Zuill and Lloyd. Kyle Lightbourne and myself have also registered ourselves as players just in case.

I was shocked by the dismissal of Sven-Goran Eriksson as Man City manager.

It's crazy nonsense to give a guy of Sven's track record just one season. I also see City have been linked with Ronaldinho.

That would certainly be an interesting signing and would thrill the City faithful I'm sure. He'd certainly help attract other big name players to the club.

Finally, I'll leave you with my tip for Euro 2008. For me Portugal will be the team to beat.