Much has been said this week about the preferential treatment given to the Premier League’s Champions League clubs after the release of some of England’s more senior players following the European Championship Qualifying win against Wales on Saturday.

Wayne Rooney, Ashley Cole, John Terry, Frank Lampard and Michael Dawson all returned to their clubs earlier than first expected and missed the first ever meeting between England and Ghana at a sold-out Wembley Stadium on Tuesday night.

Some felt it was unfair on the relegation threatened clubs that the likes of Matt Jarvis, Scott Parker, Stewart Downing and Ashley Young didn’t get rested as well what with important Premier League fixtures coming up at the weekend.

Personally I think it makes sense that the senior players be released to have extra time to prepare for upcoming Premier League fixtures and next weeks Champions League games. After all, we all want them to do us proud in Europe, don’t we?

Perhaps we should just accept the harsh reality that friendly matches mean more to the fringe players than they do to the more established players whose priorities sometimes lie with their clubs in other competitions. It could even be argued that they take playing for England for granted and that they expect to walk in and out of the England team whenever it suits them. Maybe that’s true, maybe not.

However, shouldn’t Champions League games take priority over England friendlies anyway? Personally I don’t have a problem if they do. There has to be some give and take between club and country (which has always been lacking in the past) and perhaps this is the fairest way all round to allow them to return after the first most important game and then make way to give the others a chance in a friendly. In any case, isn’t that what friendlies are for – to try new things with new players?

Anyway, I very much doubt Matt Jarvis would have wanted to give up the opportunity to get his first cap under his belt. If I was about to get my first cap you would have had to drag me back to my club kicking and screaming, and surely Ashley Young and Scott Parker would have wanted to take the chance to impress having waited patiently for so long along with Man of the Match, Stewart Downing.

I am sure the England fans, as well as the 21,000 Ghana fans, were disappointed and understandably felt hard done-by that they had paid their hard earned cash for a ticket without getting a glimpse of Rooney and Co, even if it had only been a brief first half appearance before being substituted at half time, as is the normal occurrence. So from a paying punters point of view I can accept that more could have been done to warn fans that they might not get to see the big names, but when it comes to England friendlies you always run that risk. It is England vs. Ghana after all and not Rooney or Lampard vs. Ghana.

The thing is that we already know what those players can do. At least the youngsters were hungry to prove a point rather than just going through the motions for the sake of it. The most exciting thing for me and I expect many other England fans about Tuesday night, was to see the youngsters like Danny Welbeck, Matt Jarvis and especially the goalscorer Andy Carroll, do exactly that.

As it turned out the performance was much improved compared to previous friendlies most likely down to the fact that the players on the pitch wanted to be there and wanted to give it their all and didn’t have half a mind on what club games were coming up over the next couple of weeks.

In fact, everyone benefited. The senior players got the break their clubs wanted and the performance from the players who did play justified the decision to let the others go home early. We should focus on what we learnt with the players and debutants who played, not those who didn’t. After the dismal World Cup campaign we were all begging for these players to be given a chance.

Ghana were World Cup Quarter-Finalists remember, and by no means pushovers. They are a strong, physical, entertaining team and proved to be a tough test for England’s fringe players who showed that, when they pull on that shirt, they are more than capable of excelling when allowed to step out from the shadow of the others.

We learnt a lot more about the future of England last night than we would have done had we won the game comfortably by going through the motions with a bunch of players we know inside out.

OK so England may have only drawn the game, but who cares? At least it feels like we actually achieved something on Tuesday night and moved forward as a footballing country that is trying to right the wrongs of last summer. It was pretty entertaining too.