"Four days ago, the footballing obituaries had been written, the summer jaunts to Austria and Switzerland cancelled and McClaren's P45 was all but in the post. Now, Sven-Goran Eriksson's successor has the opportunity to set the record straight and silence the doubters who said he was the wrong man for the job. "Simply put, from day one McClaren asked to be judged over the whole campaign," says Taylor. "Not one game, not five games and not 11 games. Therefore, if England seal qualification against Croatia on Wednesday - as I expect them to - McClaren's time in charge has to be considered a success. End of story." I don't know where to start. But I'll try. So McClaren says he should be judged over the campaign. Since when did employees get to set their own performance criteria? "McClaren's time in charge has to be considered a success" if we qualify. Really? Again, by what criteria other than his own and those of his friends? The doubters will be silenced by qualification? I don't think so. It's a shame that our qualification and McClaren's future are so inextricably linked as it denies us the only outcome truly worth celebrating.
even if he got the sack we'd be back to the mike bassett situation..</p> an english manager hasn't won anything domesticallyin donkeys years and no decent foreign manager would touch it unless we offered a kings ransom</p>
That's the really sad bit Getting turned down by foreign managers that we offer the job to. In the public eye. Ouch.
you will be eating humble pie when we beat Germany in the Final Err we haven't qualified yet and I am not all that confident we will Surely success isn't measured by merely qualifying though - Sven Qualified with ease in all competitions and he wasn't considered a great success I should have thought his minimum standard should be getting to at least the quarter finals. Success would be winning the cup wouldnt it?
I didn't say that we had Just that our qualification and his future are linked, i.e. if we qualify then his immediate future is secured, if we don't then it isn't. That was my only small point, really, although it may have been lost in Guinness and ambiguous grammar. And even if we win it there'll be no humble pie on the menu chez nous. It's been a largely dire campaign and we can do better.
One thing you can guarantee... He won't! If we did win - it would be no more than we should and it would be bad cos it would mean that McClaren would be there for the World Cup. As for success - up to now it has to be judged on qualifying. Next summer I guess semis would be needed at least.
I, like a few on this board, get to alot of England games And I want to know how many "bad managers" the public and press are going to get through before they decide that actually these players aren't performing the way they should be. I guess at 1.76.
That would mean addressing the fundamentals of the Engish game Rather than sitting back and thinking that because £millions from TV revenues have attracted foreign players to our top league that the Premiership is the 'best league in the world' and that everything's rosy because one or two English players get in the top 4 sides in England.</p> Perhaps our big name players aren't as 'World Class' as we think ?</p> Plus the fact one or two patently couldn't give a flying fck about representing England.</p>
Watched Brazil V Peru the other night far more enjoyable than wathcing England. Fast, flowing attacking football, not hopeless punts up front to "the big man"
Arsenal Show how football should be played. Just don't have any English players. Apart from Walcott for 10 monutes or so every other game. Is that cos Wenger's out to destroy the English game or because he doesn't think English youngsters and/or experienced professionals are good enough ? Might be worth the FA having a word with him, see what he thinks.
RE: Arsenal and too expensive. Even at our level SD has bought a team for roughly the cost of a Jeffers