Furious Steve Bruce last night blasted England's midweek friendly with France as "ridiculous".
The Wigan boss is fuming at having an international break for non-competitive clashes at such a busy time of the season. Bruce will see goalkeeper Chris Kirkland - who picked up a knock in yesterday's 3-1 defeat at Blackburn - join up with the England squad for Wednesday's game in Paris.
But he admits he would rather football's authorities scrapped the international week - or at least scheduled it at a less vital time in the campaign.
He said: "It's ridiculous we have these friendlies coming up. Whoever thought of that?
"We have 10 players away playing in these games. It baffles me, it really does. When you look at the importance of the games we have coming up and they want to play a friendly in the middle of it.
"Who cares about these friendlies? They're pointless, meaningless matches.
"We've got players going all over the world so I suppose we'll see some of them on Friday. It would be good after a game like this to get back to work with them on Monday."
Blackburn boss Mark Hughes said: "It's very difficult as we've got 15 players going away.
"You know they're international players when you sign them and you know the rules but it still seems a little crazy to have a break now."
Stoke stayed top of the Championship with a 1-1 draw at home to Blackpool after the kickoff was delayed for 30 minutes by a serious crash on the M6.
One of those caught in the traffic chaos was ref Mike Pike, who was slammed by Stoke boss Tony Pulis.
Pulis fumed: "How he thought he could drive from Cumbria to here on a Bank Holiday weekend and not take the chance of there being a problem I don't know.
"We did our warm-up and then had to go back in and sit around. We don't get muscle injuries at this club but we got two today and it's not a coincidence.
"Turning up late is completely unprofessional - he should have stayed overnight and made sure he got here on time the same as 20,000 fans."
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Jonathan Pearce
ALEC STEWART
THE MOLE