At a time when things aren't going smoothly for some of Chelsea's internationals, they find support from the likeliest of sources - columnist Giles Smith.

Booed and injured. Not a great international weekend, all in all, for Ashley Cole.

Inevitably, as a Chelsea fan, I was inclined to take the booing rather personally, just as I have taken the jeering of Frank Lampard, while on England duty, rather personally before it.

Actually, I was inclined to take Cole's injury rather personally, too. Players returning injured from international duty: is there anything in football that sinks the spirits quite so low while somehow, at the same time, raising the blood pressure quite so high?

If players get injured while playing for the club - or even while training with the club… well, that's bad enough. But at least you have the consolation of knowing that they were playing/training for the club at the time, and therefore engaged on the project of most importance to all of us. Whereas, when players pick up knocks in internationals, they do so while off mucking about with some other side that I don't really care about. It's a tough one to take.

In fact, frankly, any one of the great comical injuries suffered by footballers down the history of the game seems more acceptable to me than an injury earned while representing a national team - from Dave Beasant dropping a bottle of salad cream on his toe while making a sandwich, through to John Terry allegedly exacerbating a back injury by participating over-enthusiastically on the dodgems at a charity gala.

The second of those was never entirely proven, actually. But let's say, for the sake of argument, that it was true. In that case, I for one would find it easier to swallow than the prospect of Terry coming back crocked after a week away with England. At least, when he was on the dodgems, he was having fun and doing something worthwhile.

It looks as though Michael Ballack, too, has picked up some kind of injury while off with Germany - and nothing to do with dodgems, or any other fairground ride that might exculpate him.

It's a pure footballing injury, apparently, arising from playing football for someone who wasn't Chelsea. Again, one can only heave a fathom-deep sigh. If anyone else from our already injury-riven squad is walking with a limp come Thursday morning, I'm sure I won't be alone in failing to see the funny side.

Will Ashley see the funny side about the booing? I don't know. I imagine it was probably quite confusing to be on the end of it, when you were unselfishly going about the business of representing your country and in your country's home stadium.

However, it seems that today's England fans are ready to sit on their prejudices, up to a point, but that one slip-up in the 68th minute exhausts their supply of patience and everything leaks out.

Rio Ferdinand said afterwards that the jeerers 'ought to be ashamed of themselves' and all those involved can consider themselves thoroughly scalded by the columnists in the papers, although not by Jeff Powell in the Daily Mail, who reckoned that booing was 'too good' for Ashley and went on to blame him, not just for Kazakhstan's goal, but also, somewhat more surprisingly, for the credit crunch.

'The growl which rose from the crowd was directed as much at the financial pigs who are slurping millions out of the trough while jeopardising all our savings, mortgages and pensions as at a selfish, self-satisfied footballer,' wrote Powell.

Blimey, though. Was it? I hadn't realised that Ashley was asking Arsenal for that much, back in the day.

As I said. I'm slightly biased about Ashley because of who he plays for. At the same time, I sympathise with him because it seems to me that so much of his problem with the broader public stems from a ghost-written book - in other words, a book he didn't write and most likely hasn't read. What a bummer. I bet he rues the day he didn't write that book.

Even so, Powell aside, it can be possible to take these expressions of feeling at England games too seriously. I've always felt this was true, certainly, about the booing of national anthems. A shame and a disgrace most commentators call it, though I could never entirely separate it from the rich (and highly British) tradition of pantomime.

If we're being honest, there's probably not much more behind the ticket-holder's desire to whistle down the opposition's national anthem than there is behind the desire of the person who goes to see 'Aladdin' at Christmas to hiss and shout 'He's behind you!' every time the villain comes on.

Ditto the booing of England players. You've got to remember that the bulk of the supporters who make up the England following on these occasions are fans of lower or non-league clubs. (Read the banners around the ground for confirmation of this.)

They don't often get to boo famous, top quality players - unlike more fortunate supporters of Premier League clubs, who get to boo famous, top quality players every week. Accordingly, when England fans do get the opportunity, the occasion sometimes gets to them and they end up getting a bit carried away.

But that's only natural, isn't it? And the important thing to remember is that there's no real harm in it. Well, not much. Anyway, league football is back with us this weekend, meaning that at last we'll get some real action and can put all this other sordid business to the back of our minds, where it belongs.