Along with the rest of the nation, I was in front of a television screen watching the rugby world cup final on Saturday morning.

It was absolutely brilliant to see England beat the Australians, and made me feel very proud. Wouldn't it be great if we could repeat those scenes with the England football team some day in the future?

Speaking as someone who makes a living from kicking a ball, I really admire the genius of Jonny Wilkinson, and I don't just mean his technique, but the way he produces the goods under so much pressure. It is a great skill to just shut everything else out and concentrate on what you have to do.

England's victory and the sight of Martin Johnson lifting up that gold trophy meant that everybody went in to Birmingham's fixture against Arsenal later that day on a real high, but unfortunately we came away from the game with nothing.

If you had just looked at the final result of 3-0 to Arsenal in the Sunday papers, you would naturally have assumed we had been thrashed, but that simply wasn't the case.

Arsenal took an early lead, but I felt we matched them for 80 minutes and were unlucky not to equalise. However, as we pushed forward, they exploited the space behind us and broke forward to score two more goals.

Thierry Henry might not have scored on Saturday, but he set up all three of Arsenal's goals and that is why I think he is the best striker in the world. He scores all the goals a manager could possibly want, but he creates plenty of chances for others as well. There is no one else in the game who can compete with his record of goals and assists.

On the subject of goals, I know I need to start getting on the score sheet a bit more often. I scored two goals, against Tottenham and Newcastle, back in August, but haven't managed any since. It has been disappointing and something I hope to rectify soon.

The defeat to Arsenal means we have now only won one of our last seven games in the Premiership, but there is certainly no sense of despondency at St Andrews; we are still sitting in a UEFA Cup spot in sixth position and know that we can find our form again.

We travel to Anfield on Sunday to play Liverpool, and where better to get a result that could give our season its momentum again, however, with Michael Owen, Harry Kewell and Steven Gerrard standing in our way, we certainly know it won't be easy.