Saturday, May 6
The FA Get Their Man (Apparently) At Last

The identity of the next England manager was finally revealed this week and at the end of a long and mainly depressing process you had to feel there was some kind of method behind all the FA's madness after all.

In the end they were able to appoint a man who most people in this country feel is an assistant rather than a manager, who is not particularly liked by the fans and who few would have chosen if it had been up to them and scarcely heard a dissenting voice. Everyone had become so sick and tired of the whole thing that they would have probably not complained if Ron Atkinson had been appointed.

It's right though. If the FA had just come out and appointed Steve McClaren as Sven's successor right at the start everyone would have been up in arms. Have the past three months made McClaren the right man for the job? Was he the right man all along? Or was he never the right man?

Results can make a hero out of any manager but my personal feeling is that McClaren is not the best manager in the world and not the best of those who the FA could actually have got to do the job.

I think he was the only credible English candidate, however, and this in itself makes the increasing clamour for an Englishman in the post seem truly ridiculous.

I think it was telling that this clamour hardly ever came from the fans. I certainly remember how optimistic we all were when Kevin Keegan was swept into the role on a tidal wave of public support. That appointment remains sound, it was the logical thing to do at the time.

Unfortunately Keegan proved not up to the task. That was not his fault and we can be thankful that Keegan himself was a big enough man, and a big man who genuinely had England's best interests at heart, to walk away himself when he realised he was not the man to take us forward.

The Englishmen demanding an English leader now strike me as self important, self promoting pricks (for want of a better term) who spend their time dreaming of how they would have made great England managers and imagining how their careers have been usurped by foreigners.

Graham Taylor was particularly irritating. He even moaned about the fact that former England managers had not been consulted about the appointment. Is the man unaware of the embarrassment he was at international level? Do the names Carlton Palmer and Andy Gray mean nothing to him? Why would anyone want to consult you Graham?

Big Fat Sam maintained his shameless self promotion to the last. He even started giving us an insight into what the England team would be like under his expert guidance.

Heartened by Bolton's second decent display in three months, albeit another defeat at Spurs, Allardyce gave us a tantalising glimpse of his tactical genius.

He had played Kevin Davies against the midget Spurs full back Young-Pyo Lee and seen him win a fair amount of headers. This, he declared, is how I would use Peter Crouch. Magnificent stuff.

He then went on to assure us all that it would not be long ball and that he would use him differently if Michael Owen was actually playing. Jesus. What does actually go on in Allardyce's head?

Firstly, you're playing Crouch on the wing but you're not playing long balls. Does that mean you're playing to Peter's feet or just playing short passes to his head? Surely at his height you cannot play a short ball to his head, it has too far to travel in the first place.

Secondly, if Crouch is only playing on the wing if Owen's not playing then who on earth is playing up front? Willy Wonka? This surreal situation was supposing Wayne Rooney to be injured.

Allardyce then let everybody know just how massive a disappointment it was for him not getting the job. I would not be surprised to hear the FA come out with the news that Big Sam had never been interviewed in the first place and the whole thing, as he used to write in his stories at school, had all been a dream.

Which brings us back to Steve McClaren. I have cleverly shown just how he has been able to take his place at the top table while all the fuss centred on others.

This will not last for long, however. Once he is in charge, perhaps even earlier, McClaren's every move will be the subject of intense scrutiny. Every decision he makes, or does not make, will be reviewed and analysed a thousand times.

Experts like Graham Taylor will be pointing out all his many mistakes and explaining how they would have done things differently.

The pages of Football England will be as forthright as ever. We do, however, genuinely wish him all the best. We will be all too happy to give him praise if we think he merits it. He certainly has talent at his disposal so he should approach the job with every confidence.

He will need to be strong as well as astute to succeed, however. In many ways the England managers job is a thankless one and he is at a disadvantage in that the press are already armed with so many things to throw at him if things go wrong.

Good assistanst, good coach but always the man behind the manager. Wasn't even the first choice, got in by default. Too negative, doesn't have the respect of the big players. All these things are just waiting to be thrown in his direction whether they are true or not.

It is impossible not to feel that McClaren is a sitting target. His recent time at Middlesbrougfh has seen a series of fall outs with his "star" players and only last week his captain Gareth Southgate seemed to be suggesting he was not ready for the job of England manager. Southgate later denied the implication but this was hardly a vote of confidence.

Whether he was the preferred man of the majority of the selection panel, as they have now claimed, we will never know but we do know that he was not the first man offered the job.

The FA, probably in an attempt to deflect criticism from David Dein, have also now come out and said that Arsene Wenger was approached about the role but was not interested. This also undermines the claims that McClaren was always their first choice.

Yes, he certainly has his work cut out, especially as we are getting tired of respectable failure and are beginning to demand, perhaps unreasonably, outright success. My biggest worry about McClaren is that he looks like someone who might keep us ticking along nicely but is not someone who can inspire our side to real heights of achievemnet. Only time will tell, however, and at least the whole sorry saga is over for the time being.