THIS entire Craig Bellamy affair leaves me thinking that there is only going to be one winner - and that's Newcastle United manager Graeme Souness.

No-one outside the club knows the full goings-on, but there's talk of Bellamy walking off at training and maybe even feigning an injury and also about him possibly not wanting to be played out of what he thinks is his best position.

But there's no way you can allow a player to dictate where he wants to play. No manager is going to stand for that and nor should he have to.

Any manager has to be strong. If he stood by and just allowed that kind of thing to go on then you are going to cause major problems for yourself.

If a player throws a 'wobbler' because he doesn't want to play wide right or wide left, then the manager has to say 'okay then, you might be better off going to another club'. The manager puts you in whatever position he wants because he thinks you can do a job for him there. And after all if you've got a shirt in the starting line-up then you're in the team and surely every player wants to be in the first team from the start. That's how he got into the sport in the first place.

I remember when I was playing at Stoke City, while I was signed as a centre-forward the then manager Alan Durban sometimes played me wide right or out on the left. He even picked me as a central midfielder and I was no great shakes there.

But even though my best position was a striker, whatever position he told me I was playing in my answer was 'does that mean I'm in the team then?', so that was all right. I was just grateful to have one of those first-team shirts from numbers one to 11.

Here at City a while ago, we asked Paul Robinson to go out on the right wing even though he was brought here as a centre-forward and he said 'okay, I'll give it a go'. Now that's the attitude you want to have from your players.

I mean, Liverpool had Milan Baros - the leading marksman at last summer's European Championships - featuring wide right against Watford in their Carling Cup semi-final and he got on with it.

Whatever you feel about it, it means you are still in the team, you are still a first-choice and as a player, that's what you've got to be striving for.

I'm afraid that a lot of this boils down to money and the fact that a lot of the Premiership's players are being paid far too much.

It's reported that Bellamy has been fined £80,000 by his club. That's apparently the equivalent of two weeks' wages. Jeez, £80,000 - in my day top professionals weren't earning that a year. There's some managers in the Coca-Cola Championship who are not earning that a year now, I'll bet.

Again, when I played you'd get, say a basic £30 a week, then another £30 if you played and maybe £30 a point. So if you played and you won you could quadruple your wages.

Nowadays with all this money flying about especially in the top-flight, there's no incentive.

It's all too easy for some the players. They can sit on the bench or in the stands and still pick up all that money and if they moan or they step out of line and get fined then they'll just go and write out a cheque for £80,000.

I don't think there will be many Newcastle fans earning that sort of money in a year and all they ever want to see is their players giving all they possibly can while they are wearing those famous black and white stripes.

Updated: 08:45 Thursday, January 27, 2005