The FA are faced with something of a dilemma when they sit down to discuss who to appoint as Roy Hodgson's successor as England manager. If England want to continue the trend of appointing an English manager to the job, as of course they did with Hodgson, it's fair to say that there are slim pickings when you look as to who might be available.
Big Sam Allardyce and Eddie Howe are two names that have been linked in the press with the vacant job and, even more bizarrely, some people are actually mentioning Glenn Hoddle in relation to the job but we're not quite sure yet if he's built up the necessary karmic points to qualify for such a high profile role.
Hodgson's appointment was a curious one in itself but suggested that the FA were more keen to look within England for their national team manager than paying exorbitant wages for whoever is the foreign flavour of the month (see exhibits A & B: Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello) are at the time.
The FA do their own TV show and ask pundits Lineker, Ferdinand and Redknapp about England job. 'Arry NOT a candidate https://t.co/S3cYrakvtB
— John Cross (@johncrossmirror) July 8, 2016
Press reports are today linking former Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini with the job. The Italian finds himself on unsteady ground at Inter Milan after the club was recently taken over by a Chinese retail conglomerate. His four year spell at the Etihad which yielded a league title and an FA Cup is already more than Allardyce has achived in his career.
However, rumours of Mancini's less than warm relationships with several of his first team squad at City could work against him as if there's one thing this England squad needs it's to be united in a single cause, rather than a collection of ego-driven individuals.
And speaking of someone who could turn that into a reality...
Marcelo Bielsa has seemingly resigned one day after taking the job at Lazio. If England want to go all out, they should go for El Loco.
— Liam Canning (@LiamPaulCanning) July 8, 2016
*crosses fingers, focuses really hard* Please, please, please let the reason Bielsa quit Lazio be to take the England job.
— Jonathan Wilson (@jonawils) July 8, 2016
Another name being bandied about is the freshly-unemployed Argentinian boss Marcelo Bielsa who today resigned from Lazio just two days after joining them. Bielsa had been linked to the England job before signing with Lazio but now that his career in Rome is over before it began, you can expect those rumours to resurface again.
It would be an absolutely incredible appointment for the fact that it's 50/50 as to whether it would be an incredible success or a nuclear explosion style failure but one way or another, there's no point in getting too worked up about it as the vacant Argentina job is probably his most realistic destination.
It's clear, to us at least, that the most self-destructive move that the FA could make right now would be to appoint someone just because they're English when there are clearly better options on the continent. That said, it would be absolutely hilarious to see Glenn Hoddle work his magic on the English touchline once again.
