Next England Manager

[Whore Jackie]

Agree with Papes' view that the problem is far more deep-rooted. Problem with the FA is that it's one step forward, two steps back. Ashworth (and Southgate) do seem to be going in the right direction in terms of a coaching DNA and structure, but Dykes resignation shows there's so much resistance to any meaningful change.

That all said, it's going to take years to happen and we need a coach to take over for the WC qualifiers. Always liked Hoddle and agree that he talks sense, it's been quite illuminating in the commentary of these Euros, how quickly a manager (him and Pulis come to mind) can see the problems and their solutions. There's a rare 'greed with Kes, organisation and clever game management is exactly what the national team need. Can't see Simeone being interested, but I think Rafa could be a very astute choice. Let's forget this nationality nonsense and just appoint someone who knows what they're doing and isn't afraid to stick to his guns.

[Hoop Blah]

I'd much rather the manager was an Englishman, but I wouldn't rule out the right foreigner.

Although i think Hodgson carries a lot of the blame for the failings this time around I do agree that this is caused by something more fundamental. We've seen generations of England teams fail under far too many managers for it not to be something bigger than picking A over B or being well prepared enough to not concede two sloppy goals to Iceland like we did on Monday.

[Sutekh]

I'd much rather the manager was an Englishman, but I wouldn't rule out the right foreigner.

Foreigner is the way to go. All the other nations that have won tournament have had a foreigner in charge.

[Royal Rother]

International managers don't need to be a coach, just a man manager, motivator and tactician.

As I ranted on about pre-tournament... Pick the formation most players are familiar with, select a squad, then play the best player in each of those positions in the formation.

Never ever try the old square pegs / round holes nonsense again.

If you have 2 great strikers but the formation only requires 1 to work effectively DO NOT select both with one playing out of position.

If the formation chosen (because it is the one most players are most comfortable in) demands a left winger but you have no particularly good left wingers available, DO NOT play the 2nd striker there or a right footed winger, or a left back there, just play the best fcuking left winger you have! Being comfortable in the position he will probably exceed expectations, but whatever, he'll definitely be better, and provide more balance than some other poor fcuker who doesn't know the position.

If the players are all in their best positions what poxy coaching do they need? None. Just general tactics when we have the ball and awareness of dangers when we don't, especially set fcuking pieces.

But it has to be someONE (not a whole bloody committee) who can get inside the players' heads so they are prepared to run through the proverbial brick wall for them, and not crumble under pressure because they don't know what to do in their unfamiliar roles.

It really is not rocket science.

Etc. etc.

[Hoop Blah]

Disagree to an extent RR.

You play the player who is best in that position, irrespective of how often they play there for their club. Gareth Bale is a good example of that with Wales. He doesn't play the same position for club and country but usually does better than their other options in that position (granted, he hasn't had that good a Euro's though!).

I think an international setup does need good coaches too, but it doesn't need to be the manager of course. If you don't then how do you organise and drill your defense or instill a pattern of play to suit your attacking formation?

It still comes down to creating the right atmosphere for players to excel in though, so I agree it comes down to man-management and getting the right system/tactics in place to maximise our potential.

Redknapp would probably have made a good international manager as he couldn't wheel and deal and get the finances of a club in a mess and players do seem to love playing for him. He's got far too much baggage though so there's no way I'd want him as England manager.

[stealthpapes]

Stranded - with respect to Germany, they saw the problems years before and people had been pointing out the dearth of players coming through from around 1992 onwards. They were knocked out in 92, 94 and 98 to 'weaker' teams, even if they'd not been utterly embarassed. But the feeling in the clubs and country was of, well, malaise forever.

The issues are all at the grassroots and junior levels, and only increase from there.

Anything else, manager, playing one player or another ahead of a third, anything - that's just deckchairs on the Titanic stuff.

I think also the merging of East and West Germany temporarily confused things for them in the period you're talking about in the 90's

Might also be relevant to mention they also started to engage and include the immigrant population too which wasn't necessarily the case previously.

Completely accept both of those - the latter is very much the case.

[Jack Celliers]

Lots of interesting points on here. For me we need to fill two roles.

We need a man-manager who can get our excellent players gelling as a team - we had one of the best squads of players in the tournament, if not the best, but a manager who did nothing while we underperformed. Maybe an Englishman can fill this role (anybody but Allardyce).

Secondly we want somebody in charge of or national teams at all levels, responsible for encouraging a coherent style of play. I worked with a German who bored us all for years by going on and on about they way Germany responded to some fallow years and the 5-1 hammering from us by developing the English-style pressing game, alongside the tactical flair, that led to their current brilliance. We need the man who came up with that approach or somebody similar in charge of English football. I can't think of any suitable English people; it might be something that Wenger can devote the next ten years to.

[Whore Jackie]

So, according to The Guardian, the players are actively encouraging the appointment of a foreign manager because they consider the list of English candidates to be underwhelming.

I've nothing against a decent foreign appointment, but I'm really not sure why they should have any say in the matter or indeed how many of them have actually played under any of the potential candidates. Rooney's cosiness with Woy hardly improved matters in France.

[Who Moved The Goalposts?]

... I'm really not sure why they should have any say in the matter or indeed how many of them have actually played under any of the potential candidates. Rooney's cosiness with Woy hardly improved matters in France.

Another wonderful and timely example of just how pampered and detached from reality footballers are. Not many of us get to choose our superiors during our working life. What makes them a special case?

[Hoop Blah]

Rooney's cosiness with Woy hardly improved matters in France.

The players, and especially the captain, should be pretty comfortable and close with the manager shouldn't they?

I suppose you might want them to be intimated by the manager if you think that makes them play that bit harder, but I don't think that really helps in reality.

[Royal Rother]

A healthy dose of fear, maybe even a certain amount of love, and an unshakeable respect is needed but never ever comfort in my opinion.

[Hoop Blah]

Yeah, comfort probably isn't the best choice of word as it possibly implies complacency.

I'm thinking more along the lines of the relationship being without issues and confrontation so that there aren't upsets and disharmony within the group.

[Ark Royal]

Out of all of the candidates who have been touted - English or otherwise - only Laurent Blanc stands out.

[Sutekh]

Like Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, the only way the national team are going to become genuine contenders is by way of a root and branch change to the national coaching setup. We need to encourage more qualification at UEFA 'B' and 'A' level by drastically reducing the cost - have you seen the cost compared to Spain and Germany? No wonder they have thousands more qualified than England. We need more outdoor pitches built and structures at county and club level to standardize development of kids from as young as 3-4 upwards. We need to scrap competitive games games for kids up to the age of 12 so their focus is purely on technique: technically - as well as mentally - England were the weakest nation at the Euros. We also need to be prepared to give up the chance of any competitive tournament football for the next 15-20 years.

The F.A. need to force the county F.A.'s and clubs - including the PL - to adopt the same philosophy. Unfortunately, the F.A. have sold their soul to the devil and I cannot see anything like it happening. England will remain the footballing equivalent of North Korea: an inward-looking, self-flagellating, hermit state totally oblivious to outside influences.

Oh and Gareth Southgate should not even be the question, let alone the fu cking answer.

Well isn't that argument largely defeated by the success of the Welsh? Just goes to show it's more or less all down to having a manager with a plan who knows exactly what he's doing and exactly how to get there rather than the clueless, passionless and/or utterly hopeless incumbents the FA keep digging up.

[bcubed]

Maybe we need a Welsh Manager?!

[John Madejski's Wallet]

... I'm really not sure why they should have any say in the matter or indeed how many of them have actually played under any of the potential candidates. Rooney's cosiness with Woy hardly improved matters in France.

Another wonderful and timely example of just how pampered and detached from reality footballers are. Not many of us get to choose our superiors during our working life. What makes them a special case?

Just how f*cking arrogant and pampered are our players

[From Despair To Where?]

Like Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, the only way the national team are going to become genuine contenders is by way of a root and branch change to the national coaching setup. We need to encourage more qualification at UEFA 'B' and 'A' level by drastically reducing the cost - have you seen the cost compared to Spain and Germany? No wonder they have thousands more qualified than England. We need more outdoor pitches built and structures at county and club level to standardize development of kids from as young as 3-4 upwards. We need to scrap competitive games games for kids up to the age of 12 so their focus is purely on technique: technically - as well as mentally - England were the weakest nation at the Euros. We also need to be prepared to give up the chance of any competitive tournament football for the next 15-20 years.

The F.A. need to force the county F.A.'s and clubs - including the PL - to adopt the same philosophy. Unfortunately, the F.A. have sold their soul to the devil and I cannot see anything like it happening. England will remain the footballing equivalent of North Korea: an inward-looking, self-flagellating, hermit state totally oblivious to outside influences.

Oh and Gareth Southgate should not even be the question, let alone the fu cking answer.

Well isn't that argument largely defeated by the success of the Welsh? Just goes to show it's more or less all down to having a manager with a plan who knows exactly what he's doing and exactly how to get there rather than the clueless, passionless and/or utterly hopeless incumbents the FA keep digging up.

If the figures on Wikipedia are to be believed, England has about 1400 A & B Licence holders. To put that into context, Germany has about 6,000 and Iceland has about 800.

[Libertine]

The answer isn't a Welsh manager it is, what I'll refer to as, the Welsh model.

Coleman has stuck with one group of players, mainly out of necessity, and allowed those players to gel as a team...on and off the pitch. English team on the other hand seems to a revolving door setup where players are rotated in and out of the squad without being given the opportunity to gel as a team.

Whomever is the next manager for England would be well served to, make the "hard decisions", settle on a group of players he thinks are the best and let them play together, repeatedly, without the tinkering past managers have engaged in...

For example, Ranieri used to be a tinkerman until he got to Leicester and had very little opportunity to tinker. Look what happened there. Leicester City and Wales make it quite obvious what needs to be done to succeed.

[stealthpapes]

Like Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, the only way the national team are going to become genuine contenders is by way of a root and branch change to the national coaching setup. We need to encourage more qualification at UEFA 'B' and 'A' level by drastically reducing the cost - have you seen the cost compared to Spain and Germany? No wonder they have thousands more qualified than England. We need more outdoor pitches built and structures at county and club level to standardize development of kids from as young as 3-4 upwards. We need to scrap competitive games games for kids up to the age of 12 so their focus is purely on technique: technically - as well as mentally - England were the weakest nation at the Euros. We also need to be prepared to give up the chance of any competitive tournament football for the next 15-20 years.

The F.A. need to force the county F.A.'s and clubs - including the PL - to adopt the same philosophy. Unfortunately, the F.A. have sold their soul to the devil and I cannot see anything like it happening. England will remain the footballing equivalent of North Korea: an inward-looking, self-flagellating, hermit state totally oblivious to outside influences.

Oh and Gareth Southgate should not even be the question, let alone the fu cking answer.

Well isn't that argument largely defeated by the success of the Welsh? Just goes to show it's more or less all down to having a manager with a plan who knows exactly what he's doing and exactly how to get there rather than the clueless, passionless and/or utterly hopeless incumbents the FA keep digging up.

It depends on what you want to build.
For a country with the player pool of Wales or Iceland, you've only got a limited number of players and their training might be dependent on other nations.In any case, Iceland utterly renovated their coaching and 'grass'roots over the last decade (its very post2008). 800 A and B licenses compared to 1400 for a country 200 times smaller? That's damning.

Then there's having a system scaled up to, say, Germany.

England do *neither*. And rinse and repeat every two years. Madness.

FWIW, Iceland and Germany did very similar things with their national setups, albeit on different scales.

[stealthpapes]

And the other thing to remember is that England aren't *bad*. They're somewhere up towards the top 10 in the world. Marginal gains could make all the difference.