All changed, changed suddenly
Who is the new man in charge, and what does he want?
The FA is forced to say it is not wedded to an English-only manager because the options are so far diminished
Southgate could get job, like Allardyce, by default
At Wembley Stadium next Saturday, the old dysfunctional family of the Football Association will convene for the autumn World Cup qualifier against Malta, an occasion that one month earlier would have heralded a new era on the pitch, as well as behind the scenes.
They had a new manager in place in Sam Allardyce, and a new chairman in Greg Clarke, the straight-talking former Football League chairman with a solid career in the City of London behind him and a greater connection with the FA councillors than his predecessor. Never mind the arrival of Allardyce, the old guard of the FA council would simply have been delighted to see the back of Greg Dyke, whose reforms they resisted wholeheartedly.
The chief executive, Martin Glenn, has been in the job just 18 months, too, brought in, by his own admission, to do the nuts and bolts of Dyke’s FA costcutting programme – redundancies in other words – that was intended to redirect funds towards grass-roots facilities. Or rather the synthetic grass roots of Dyke’s programme of building hubs of 3G pitches in 30 towns and cities across England.
As Glenn said on Friday, he had been “branded a cost cutter” but has been tasked with allocating funds from the infrastructure of the FA to coach education, pitches and St George’s Park. “Participation is healthy, technical skills are improving, the finances of the FA have never been so healthy so we can spend more back,” he said. “I think that it’s much more right than it is wrong, but we’re not being complacent.”
Yet for all the changes wrought in the past year, foremost in everyone’s minds will be the catastrophic judgment of one man that has led to the departure of yet another England manager, just 67 days after he was appointed.
It was Clarke who was the most hawkish that Allardyce had to go during a meeting of senior personnel at the FA on Tuesday afternoon when they digested the details of the Daily Telegraph’s investigation team’s report into their meetings with the 61-yearold. Glenn admitted in a frank briefing that when he was first alerted to the Telegraph investigation via an email on Monday, his first reaction was that Allardyce could survive.
“I did have a reaction on the Monday that I wanted to keep him. His football credentials were good, his leadership credentials were excellent, my instinct on Monday was, ‘Let’s look at it and let’s find a way to make it work’. As events unfolded and in the cold light of day [we judged] that it was going to be a compromise to the FA.”
After the meeting with Allardyce, Clarke and Glenn spent an hour together and by 3.30pm on Tuesday they had called the then England manager back in and told him that they did not felt he could go on. Gareth Southgate was called and told that this time he was required to step into the breach with Aidy Boothroyd taking over the under-21s duties and there will be no discussion of a new manager until after the qualifiers against Malta and then Slovenia a week on Tuesday.
The FA has also parted company with Craig Shakespeare, the assistant from Leicester City brought in by Allardyce. Southgate has promoted Steve Holland, the Chelsea first-team coach, from the under-21s to the senior side.
Southgate was at the draw between Everton and Crystal Palace on Friday night and will be at Leicester City’s home game against Southampton this afternoon. He left yesterday clear to take stock and it only took 20 minutes of the first game of the weekend, Liverpool’s visit to Swansea City, for the first injury concern – Adam Lallana’s groin injury that forced his substitution, with the club confirming he will miss the forthcoming two matches as a result.
The FA is insistent that, in Glenn’s words, Southgate’s agreement to oversee the next four fixtures, including the World Cup qualifier against Scotland on Nov 11 and the visit of Spain four days later, is “not an audition”. The governing body does not want to put any extra pressure on Southgate other than to say that he is a “genuine contender”.
This time around the appointment process will be led by Clarke and Glenn, along with Dan Ashworth, the FA technical director. When Allardyce was appointed, the FA was also in the process of appointing Clarke and David Gill was the FA’s acting chairman. Gill was the most experienced of the FA inner circle but will not be part of the new process.
Clarke and Glenn have had no option but to say that they are not wedded to the notion of an English-only manager of the England team, simply because the options are so far diminished. The field was thin before Allardyce was appointed and there is plenty of evidence to suggest he was not first choice
Indeed, The Sunday Telegraph understands that Arsène Wenger was offered the job first and turned it down. After that there are strong suggestions that the West Ham manager Slaven Bilic was asked whether he wanted the job and turned it down.
As things stand, Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe is now the outstanding candidate, although nothing he has said publicly in the summer, or in the last few days, has given the FA any encouragement.
The last appointment process coincided with Bournemouth’s summer transfer window and there was concern at the club that any ambiguity on their manager’s future could compromise the chance of making signings.
If Howe is the man whom the FA decides is its best option then the governing body will have to convince him, but why would that be any different given the current status of the England team?
The England manager should, of course, be an Englishman but it is not hard to envisage a narrative emerging from the FA in the next weeks and months that at a time of crisis for English managers, and with Wenger approaching the end of his Arsenal contract, now is the time for an experienced Frenchman.
There is no question that the FA will approach Wenger and if he says once again that he is not interested then you wonder just where they will end up going next.