Lord God Jose Mourinho wrote:
This is football. What Greg Dyke said this week means FA.
For me a lot depends on how England perform against Costa Rica. Costa Rica have qualified, they can lose and still top the group. If we manage to beat them then we can look on the bright side and take positives. If we get smacked 3-0 then that's completely different.
IMO the major problem is that there is no English candidates. Harry Redknapp is possibly the only one, but he's not exactly helped his chances at QPR. His moment was when he was doing OK at Spurs and getting them to the CL, that has long gone. Our next managers are Fat Sam and Tony Pulis. Pulis has earned big respect for what he did at Palace this season but he's still a no. Fat Sam is making West Ham turn their noses up, no chance of England appointing him.
Brenton Rodgers earned the plaudits this season, but he's only been very successful this season and that success could disappear just as fast. Roberto Martinez is pretty much the same.
If I was on the FA I'd be on the phone to Sir Alex Ferguson and asking if he was interested. Now most people will say that because he's Scottish he'll never manage England, but I don't believe that. He's managed England's biggest club for 25 years, he has the respect of nearly every Englishman and I think most Scots would absolutely love it that England appoint one of them as the King of English football.
Ferguson would never happen in a billion years.
I too see a complete lack of any viable candidates at this time. I think they're done with foreign managers for the time being after Sven and Capello and in terms of english managers theres sod all at the moment. Just no one of the calibre. Theres a few promising british managers but they haven't proved themselves long enough yet.
The only foreign manager they may potentially allow in the near future would be mourinho, but again it would never happen. Mourinho I doubt would want the job and I don't think the FA would like someone with such big balls, they'd feel they couldn't handle him. (pussys).
I don't really have a problem with Roy staying on for now, then reviewing after euro 2016. There's not really many better options but this is effectivley his first tournament with england after having no prep for 2012 and he has made some positive decisions even if it hasn't manifested itself into results.
England's priority now over the next 2 years should be to refresh the deeper lying midfield, tighten up the defence immeasurably and continue with a similiar set up in attack. The team as a unit needs to become much more tactically astute without the ball.
If we can tighten up as a unit and continue the development of the likes of barkley and sterling et al we'll probably have a much more positive 2016 (even if, ultimatley it ends in quarter final defeat again).
In the end though, england will continue to fall short, relentlessly, until they have some actual genuine world class talent in the gun positons.
It's funny, at the time the sven era was much maligned because people expected england to outright win tournaments. But you almost look back on it with envy. Ok, they didn't play good football, but they were damned solid and difficult to beat and had a few real weapons (owens clinical finishing, beckhams delivery) and would always make the QF and unlucky not to progress further.