IF I was Roy Hodgson, I’d have had Leighton Baines in the England team for the next two games.

Roy Hodgson should have had the chance to sit down with Cole and say ‘Look, the FA are saying you’re going to be banned for the next two games, and I’d like you to sit them out’.

For me, Cole should have received a two-match ban and sat out the World Cup qualifiers against San Marino and Poland.

What if the message he tweeted criticising the Football Association had been written in a newspaper article? Imagine the trouble he’d have been in!

Cole has clearly reacted immediately to the John Terry decision and been an idiot.

Having said that, I would defend Cole the footballer. For the last five years he has been far and away England’s most consistent footballer. People talk about Marcelo, but for me there isn’t a better left-back in the world than Cole.

Forget about the idiotic stuff, in terms of a footballer he is a top-class player.

Cole wouldn’t be left out on the strength of his performances. But he should have been made to sit out the next two games.

He is two caps away from being one of very few players to play 100 internationals for England. For 96 of those, he has played absolutely outstandingly – I can only remember two where he was a bit iffy.

Mind you, Cole can be that much of an idiot that he might well have said he doesn’t want to play for England again should he have been slapped with a ban.

Baines has been unlucky with his timing. If he’d been born five years later or five years earlier, he would have a roomful of caps.

He is a great professional and a top player, and in any other country he’d end up with 75 or more caps.

A ban for Cole would have been a great opportunity for Baines. If the Everton man gets a chance in any case, then Hodgson will face a decision between the two for the next qualifiers.

Hodgson is guaranteed a reaction from Baines as he loves to play, and he’ll surely get a reaction from Cole who will want his place back.

Baines’ late penalty earned Everton a deserved draw at the weekend at Wigan, but the worry is that David Moyes’s side are starting to concede a few goals.

Sylvain Distin wasn’t quite at it earlier in the season, so Moyes brought in John Heitinga.

The Dutchman has moaned this season about not playing, so if he doesn’t perform, as he didn’t do at Wigan, then Distin could come back in.

Both Distin and Heitinga are good players, but both are clearly struggling for form at the moment.

Everton also miss Darron Gibson. Sometimes certain players are only appreciated in their absence, and Gibson is certainly one of those.