Mails: Nev, Carra as England joint-managers

Matt Stead

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

 

Send it to a public vote
I’ve seen a few ideas thrown about regarding who should be the next England manager and have even seen jokingly an X-Factor style vote. Obviously this was a joke but I actually don’t think a public vote is bad idea (not X-Factor style that would be silly).

I really think there should be around 5 candidates that really want the job and are qualified to do so and it be like the General Election. They have to provide a manifesto with policies about what formation they will use, style of play, youth policy or experienced players and other things etc. Any candidate that pledges to never pick Rooney again would pick up quite a lot of votes.

And then finally we have the day where we vote. This obviously isn’t big enough for the poll booths but online, post and phone votes would be the way forward and the person with the most votes gets the job.

This way the people have chosen who to represent the team and it would feel like a bit more unity would be there. The man chosen has a contract drawn up which says he must adhere to his policies (personnel that is, he obviously wouldn’t have to stick with one formation as that would be a total hindrance).

Actually having written this mail I’m torn 50-50 between this being a great idea and it being rubbish. What do others think?
Bradley Kirrage. 

 

An analysis of the best options
Who should be the next England manager? Let’s analyse what I believe to be the best options.

Arsene Wenger – has a strong history of overachieving with bog standard players, achieving Champion’s League qualification with the likes of Cygan, Squillaci and Walcott. Also has a lot of relevant experience in disappointing fans with high expectations.

Tim Sherwood – nobody really cares about international football anymore, so we might as well pick someone who will make it fun. Who doesn’t want to see us playing a 4-4-2 with Alli and Barkley in centre midfield, and Adebayor up front?

Ian Holloway – for similar reasons as Sherwood but with even more interview banter. Expect to hear how beating Malta at home was a lot making to love to a beautiful woman, but with all your friends and family watching, or something.

Gary Neville & Jamie Carragher – as joint managers – this would definitely be entertaining. I can fully imagine them arguing about whether to sub on Rashford or Lallana for so long that the game has long since finished. All interviews must be done with both of them simultaneously, and the interviewer will obviously have to throw in a question about whether Scholes or Gerrard was better, because everyone loves hearing them argue about that as well.

Sam Allardyce – has a lengthy history of getting acceptable performances from mediocre players, and recently became unemployed so no compensation fee required. He also finished his last international appointment with a 100% win record, which is literally as good as it gets.

Jurgen Klinsmann – because a German managing the England team would upset the Daily Mail and all their readership, which is as good a reason as any.
Olly Cole, THFC (won the Champion’s League with Everton on Football Manager 2005, which makes me over-qualified if anything)

 

[of_poll name=’Who will be the next permanent England manager?’ id=’178898′]

 

Louis for England
Obviously there will be, and has already been, a lot of discussion about who should get the England job on a permanent basis.

I’d like to nominate Aloysius Paulus Maria “Louis” van Gaal. He was a success in his last international job with the Netherlands (I’m pretty sure England would settle for semi finals in 2018). He has blooded or helped to blood some of the players who could/should be involved going forward (Rashford, Lingard) and also seemed to get the best out of Smalling (Shaw was also doing well pre-injury under Van Gaal last season). His style of football wouldn’t be as big an issue at international level where the pace of games is slower (I think this is one of the reasons he succeeded at the World Cup but not in the premier league) and England fans have lowered expectations and will settle for being awful to watch if they do well at a tournament (why else would you hire Allardyce in the first place?).

Personally I’d employ him just to see the deathly stare he’d give journalists when they asked some of their ridiculous loaded questions to try and upset the apple cart.
Tom – Greater Manchester

 

So this started a flippant joke then actually made sense the more I thought about it. How about LVG for England? Well firstly on the whole international football has become rather dull and attritional, LVG is perfect for that. He has a good record with youth so could be given a mandate to prioritise young players. He did well with the Netherlands despite having some very average players by creating a team spirit combined with a system that worked with the players available.
Mark Thouless

 

Or Clement
Just had a quick look at the odds for who the bookies think will become the next England manager – a depressing to unlikely list. One name not on there as far down as 33/1 was Paul Clement. Now I know things didn’t go well for him at Derby, but this is a guy who has successfully worked at and coached the players of, currently, three of Europe’s premier clubs, Real, PSG & Bayern – and their groups of elite players. And surely the England “manager” job is actually more of a coaching role as opposed to all the extras that are entailed with club management? I personally am not a rabid, patriotic to the max, follower of the Three Lions, but I will acknowledge that more often than not an England squad contains very good players – but what they lack or have been lacking in recent years is a man in charge who isn’t either past it, riding the gravy train, or inept.

He wanted to be on Allardyce’s coaching team anyway but Bayern don’t want him splitting his time, so why not just offer him the main job?
Cheers, BB.

 

Or Hiddink (but not Pardew)
For me there is only one choice for the England job, Lovely Guus Hiddink.

We need someone who has international experience, any muppet can get us through qualifying (no offence Schteve) so we need someone who has at least had a bash at proper groups stages/knockouts.

This instantly rids Pardew which is great as he would be unbearable cretin if he got it, Bruce wouldn’t be as smug but I don’t think he is anywhere near good enough. Hoddle has tournament experience but he has been out of the management game for far too long and he is generally just a bit of a mug from what I have heard in his punditry.

So it’s got to be Guus, has an ok record at international level and is currently not up to much.

Just not Pardew please, as a Coventry City fan football is already pretty grim and that would make things even worse.
Sam (Not the Big one, probably an average sized one)

 

Or Wayne…
Next Boss..

Surely the only answer is to get Wayne to take on a player manager role, hes the greatest thing ever in history ever isn’t he?

It couldnt get any worse (Could it?)

Actually not caring who they give it to any more, as long as its not the other dodgy care salesman ‘Arry
Al – ‘They’ are trying to put me off football but I like it despite ‘them’!

 

Wenger’s perfect exit
The England job seems the perfect way for Arsene to his term at Arsenal.

He wouldn’t have to retire. He would probably still get to see Jack, Theo, Alex, Danny and maybe even Carl but probably not Callum.

He has integrity and is principled almost to a fault and he plays football in the right way and would command the respect of the players.

For all the stick he got I actually think one of England’s better recent managers was Sven. He treated his players as grown ups and they rewarded him with a series of quarter final finishes.

And after our terrible displays of recent years, I’d quite like to see England get to a quarter final in a tournament and not disappoint.

Arsene’s very good at qualifying for things and he’s won more FA Cups than any other manager in the league so why not give him a shot?

We could get Simeone and everyone’s a winner.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

 

Sam isn’t the story
This isn’t really a defence of Sam, he was certainly guilty of being thick as two planks at the very least. What I find depressing is the relative lack of outrage (in a time when outrage is not in short supply) over the Telegraphs tactics. They totally fabricated a situation with the ultimate goal of getting a person sacked from their job. Am I the only one who finds this disgusting?

There is no suggestion they had information about any wrongdoing and this was their way of getting to the bottom of it. They invented a scenario purely to create the biggest story possible.

Again, I am no big Sam fan and he is far from blameless but this stuff is vile and these ‘journalists’ should be ashamed of themselves.
Stephen, Dublin

 

A quick note on Big Sam, albeit I’m sure you are more bored of reading Big Sam mailboxes than we were when they were dominated by Wayne Rooney last week. With that in mind I will keep it brief(ish).

First let me say, for footballing reasons I’m glad he’s gone. For me the man lost all credibility with the whole Rooney debacle after his first game – claiming he couldn’t tell Wayne where to play because he has more international experience. Embarrassing from the off and should have been sacked for incompetence following that comment.

However, the way that he has gone sums up the British media and makes me embarrassed to be an England fan. I do not think that Big Sam was a popular appointment with the fans. Instead, his (or Steve Bruce’s) appointment had been championed by the PFMs and the media. Its slightly ironic therefore that the media that pushed so hard for an English no-nonsense manager have been responsible for his decline after only 67 days. Classic English media, big him up then knock him down as quickly as possible in order to sell papers. Allardyce isn’t blameless here, as obviously he should have kept his views to himself, but if I were at the FA the first thing I would do this morning would be banning The Telegraph from all access to the England football team. As well as embarrassing Allardyce, their leak has also indirectly made a mockery of the FA through his comments. Lets not pretend this is anything but a false situation caused completely by one of Britains biggest media outlets sh*t stirring in order to sell papers. In the process they have lost someone their dream job. I hope they sold plenty of papers….
TP (Can The Telegraph do a similar job to get SISU out please), Coventry

 

Sam to return
Does anyone else think Fat Sam will just return to Sunderland?

They didn’t sack him and Moyes is a bit, well er rubbish.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

 

Fix the Player of the Month voting
Ok fat Sham was an idiot he got what he deserved. Let’s talk about something else.

For the past couple years now I’ve been somewhat bugged by the player of the month voting system, amongst other things left for football fans to decide. Merely because I feel it favours massively the bigger clubs.

Now I am a Manchester City fan and although nowadays we are seen as one of the big boys, mainly due to our quality, finances and league positions over recent seasons, we are nowhere near clubs like united, Liverpool and arsenal in terms of fan base.

Yesterday I saw the running for the September player of the month on sky and the lovely Kevin De Bruyne took an early lead in the poles (rightly so in my humble opinion) yet mane ended up winning with half the votes. I know mane has had an impressive month as well as my Kevin (not sure of the stats couldn’t be bothered looking) and maybe he did deserve it but surely not by such a margin. I appreciate fans having their say is important however I feel it is the ‘traditional’ big clubs who benefit from this merely because they have more fans. Eg Jordan henderson accompanying Leo Messi on the fifa cover a couple years ago wtf.

Don’t really know what my point is maybe I just feel sorry for Kev. Do any other mailboxers have any ideas of how we can make these systems fairer on smaller clubs whilst keeping fans involved.
C M (anything but Sam or Wayne)