FA must bin plan for England caretaker boss and stop their empire crumbling into further disarray
Neil Ashton insists football's rulers should stop pussy-footing around, deal with rising pressure and find the right man soon
GOOD old Gareth, he will do it. Tide us over for a bit.
That attitude, the staggering arrogance of the FA’s chief executive Martin Glenn, has cost them one manager already.
There may well be more on the way.
Hiring and firing England head coaches is a bit different to Glenn’s previous employment at a biscuit factory.
The FA’s empire, once admired around the world, is crumbling.
Gareth Southgate, a dignified, respected and popular man at St George’s Park, is not here to be pushed around.
He is not a clone of Dan Ashworth, the FA’s director of elite development, or any of his cohorts.
England Under-21 coach Southgate has 56 full caps and cherishes every single one.
He earned them, he respects them. For that, he is a heavyweight. Little wonder he was not sold on the idea of being a caretaker for the senior side.
Pussy-footing around the issue of a full-time manager, taking soundings from all and sundry, will not get us anywhere.
It breeds indecision, fear and uncertainty. The FA are world class at that.
‘Not a football expert’ Glenn and Ashworth are tasked with changing the face of English football.
David Gill, the FA’s vice-chairman, has the bulging contacts book but you can bet your last dollar that his first call will be to Sir Alex Ferguson.
The pressure has just been ramped up and Glenn has already called his first time-out.
Less than 24 hours after Roy Hodgson’s exit, Glenn was so jittery he claimed it could take a year before a permanent successor is found.
Scraping the players up from the dressing-room floor and sending them out for September’s World Cup qualifier in Slovakia is not for Southgate the sucker.
Remember, this is not a 24-team Euros, where it is almost harder not to qualify.
To be certain of being in Russia in 2018, England must top the group.
Finishing second does not even guarantee a nerve- shredding play-off.
And we all know how well England respond to pressure.
This is the biggest job of all in our sport.
It is not for Southgate to accept on the basis that we will be rolling out the red carpet and bowing down to another stellar name in a few months.
What kind of message will it send out to aspiring English coaches if the man being groomed for the job is not offered it full-time?
Part-time Gareth. Nice guy Gareth. Not quite for us, Gareth. He is already in the system, sticking his beak into every area of St George’s Park to prepare himself for the biggest job of all.
England’s DNA? Southgate’s your man. Performance analysis? Southgate’s your man. Psychological profiling? Southgate’s your man.
He certainly wants the job one day but it will have to be on his terms. Full-time terms.
There is a holding pattern at the FA, a group of ambitious coaches who may fancy a crack at the biggest job of all one day.
Keith Downing, Aidy Boothroyd, Paul Williams, Neil Dewsnip, Steve Cooper and Dan Micciche are all in circulation at St George’s Park.
They will reach a dead end if an outsider is offered the job. The idea that the FA can throw in one of their own employees for a few games is crazy.
It could set the game back 20 years, perhaps more.
Southgate offered no guarantees. Detractors pointed to his disappointing spell as Middlesbrough manager and a group stage exit with the Under-21s at their European Championships last summer.
But when it came to the Toulon tournament in May, England won it — easily.
If Southgate accepted the England job on an interim basis he would be in danger of turning into the FA’s version of Tony Parkes. Dear old Tony is Blackburn through and through. Whenever they sacked a manager at Ewood Park, and boy did they go through them, Parkes would be placed in temporary charge.
Parkes would mow the grass, sweep the dressing room and lay out the kit if you asked him to.
There is a bit of that about Southgate, with his England career and commitment to the coaching set-up at St George’s Park.
The FA, a complicated and vacuous organisation, is crying out for leadership at every level.
That includes the national team, where the squad for the first World Cup qualifier will be picked in less than ten weeks.
They will need to hold their nerve now. And get on with it.
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