Same with Chelsea. What’s all this about John Terry being a brilliant centre-half? He’s passionate I’ll give you that, but even so his tackling leaves a lot to be desired. Ricardo Carvalho does Terry’s dirty, whilst JT makes one clearance off the line and is proclaimed God!

Best centre-half this country has produced in a long time is Jonathan Woodgate, but the poor bastard is always injured. If it were me I’d have a Campbell-Woodgate partnership (not Carra-which from a Red is pretty rich)

The job for inspiration though comes down to both Captain and Manager. End of.

But he wouldn’t do it. He’s not a mug.

I ask you this. How do you sign someone for 30million and tell them they have to get better because they can’t defend for toffee. He answers “If that’s true then why pay 30million for me boss”. There’s your problem and there’s why Rio is arrogant enough to believe he’s good enough if he can earn 50k+/week. I think he has it in his locker to far surpass Sol Campbell, Nesta, Baresi and even the great Bobby Moore. But he never will because he’s arrogant and has gotten too much too fast. Yet another example of English football at it’s worst.

Secondly – While I agree with you about player responsibility and the role the press play in the team mentality I think you all ignore the way the F.A. run the English game and how that effect all below them.

These people at the F.A. live in constant fear of being exposed as dinosaurs of the game who knew very little in the first place. Rather than take tough decisions and then stick by them to the point where they may lose their own job over it, they just sack this one and get on with the next one. The reason this works so well for them is the press will be doing what they do and reporting the current problematic position the team’s in for a long time tus making any action seem fair and sensible. If those who consider themselves true fans of the game(but are in fact just tribal fans who care little about the national team and more about their own club)actually recognised their place in all this then the F.A. couldn’t get away with going from one joke to the next. All of which are their own mistake and abley supported by fans lack of vigilence and the presses constant feeding frenzy at any time things aren’t perfect.

The fear from the top of the F.A. for their jobs has so long be evident to me and it has become endemic in our game and filters down any England manager, who can never look up for support so just hopes the players save him his job. The players then lose respect and belief in the manager, all is lost from there and it’s just a matter of time before another aimless change is made.

We need our best players, being the best players in English club sides because very few would leave this country considering the money they can earn here even in lower Premiership teams. This means not allowing all the sides like Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea to just fill key positions with foreigners and forcing them to take only a few non-english players. This is not without precident as all the owners in Italy have agreed this in the past despite E.U. rules/laws and it resulted in them taking back the game and again instilling pride in their national side. But in England how can you ask a load of foreign businessmen who have been allowed to pay a pretty penny for English clubs(?) to then do things to the detriment of a PRODUCT they have bought thus not letting them build the brand worldwide and keep the cost of running that club down. These guys don’t come here for the love of English football (they’re not English!), they come for theor own egos and to help them in other businesses they have where they can have made and can make more real money. A premiership club is in no way as good as an investment as the stock markets when you have as much money as them and so the state of our game is all our fault and we get the National side we deserve.

LOL. We were, are and always will be ‘Stupid England’ all the time we go for blaming others rather than realising our m,istakes and taking action to sort them out. Blame get’s you nowhere if it’s just to deflect blame away from you own mistakes. Blame must be focussed to all who deserve it.

I respect Mourinho as a coach & what he’s done for Chelsea & i agree he might not be used to the International scene. But another reason why i wouldn’t pick him is that he’s TOO passionate about the way he does things. Everything he does has got bombastic written all over it. He’s just as likely to throw tantrums ranting against the FA & the media, deflect blame when things aren’t going his way & attract too much negative attention & i feel that has also been to Chelsea’s detriment in times past.

His treatment of Shevchenko seemed to me more of a spiteful decision against the owner rather than on merits. Plus the fact that despite what everyone else thinks i don’t think he’s clinical enough in crunch matches & prefers the safety options that are sure-fire wins. This is not always the best approach in knock-out tournaments & probably wouldn’t suit England’s playing style.

He might be able to win a long seasonal competition but how would he be in a World Cup? I feel that the best kind of international coaches are ones like Jacquet, Hiddink, Scolari, Beckenbauer & (lately) Jorvan Vieira (who’s had successes with Moroccan & Iraqi national teams). These guys manage to create a wall around their players & absorb the criticism levelled at them in such a way that they successfully create the impression to the world that they don’t care, that they’re here to do a job & they will do it their way & succeed.

In contrast, i am in awe of Scolari. He is the kind of guy i like to think Mourinho will become in 10-15 years time with the kind of controlled volatility that galvanises his team into action at the right moments. Have you seen his press conferences? He’s almost sedate & absorbs all criticisms like a smiling fox while managing to control & focus his energies on developing his team. I remember in 2002 he dumped Romario from the national team despite the tidal wave of public opinion against him & dramatic/theatrical personal pleas from Romario himself. He just said a firm ‘no’, gave his reasons & got on with his job & won the World Cup for Brazil.

In short, i don’t think Mourinho is mature enough for such a job. Maybe he can coach Portugal in a couple of years time, who knows? But my ideal choices would be Hiddink & yes, Scolari as well.

Maybe that’s the kind of thing the English team needs? Agreeably the main reason why it worked was the sheer power of the personalities of these 2 coaches & similarities of their approach to the game (Jacquet had recommended Domenech for the job). I saw a documentary of France ’98 with the French team & in every clip Jacquet took no nonsense from players, told them to shut up & listen when necessary & psychologically built them up to the point where they were ready for war.

Similarily in the group game against S Korea at WC ’06, Domenech substituted Zidane towards the end of the game (he was on 2 yellow cards & due to miss the next game against Togo) just to send a clear message to the players that EVERYONE has to pull their weight despite their superstar status. He also knew that Zidane was a volatile & abrasive presence to the other players despite his leadership qualities & it was a clear message to Zidane to shape up or ship out.

Admirably the players responded to the do or die situation & beat Togo 2-0 (without Zidane in a 4-4-2 formation) to qualify for the next round & Zidane returned to help thrash Spain 3-1. The rest was history.

If England can get the right coach who has the guts to drop big players EVEN if they don’t communicate well with their teammates, as well as stand up to the media horde & back his players no matter the circumstances, then they can go a long way in improving their chances. The only man in my mind who can do that is Guus Hiddink.

Any other ideas for managers like that?