Inevitable, really. You can’t go so publicly against your bosses, and on such a hot-button subject, without expecting your job to be on the line.
So now what? Almost everybody out there seems to want Harry Redknapp…but is he really the answer? Considering that the FA now wants the England manager to also be in charge of the new player development centre, should the FA be looking for someone with more experience in that field…i.e., Stuart Pierce?
And on the same day that Redknapp became eligible for the job. You wonder if the FA went into the meeting wanting this outcome.
What an impossible job that is.
Redknapp is the obvious choice, which is exactly why they shouldn’t pick him.
England will win nothing without a fundamental re-think of how the national team plays their football. Harry just won’t do that. Nothing will change.
This is exactly it. The current England team theory just seems to be “put all the top-rated players on the pitch, let them do their thing”.
He was the perfect manager for this generation of England players - sickeningly over-paid, under-achieveing and past it.
The Euros are a write-off. Best thing would be to appoint a stuffed tracksuit like Stuart Pierce and take the kids over. Anyone over the age of 25 can please get tae fuck with extreme prejudice. You can argue exceptions for the whore-monger and Ashley Cole, but I’d be inclined to fuck them off too just by association.
Redknapp is clearly a motivator which counts for a lot to be honest. England stank the place out last world cup and it wasn’t solely down to personel or tactics. They weren’t blessed in those areas but there was a lot more to it than that - Rooney played like the #9 for the coach and horses, just atrocious and he wasn’t the only one. Redknapp would be an instant improvement but long term he’s not the answer. There’s also the issue of him being a crook - no one thinks he’s on the straight and narrow despite the recent CPS incompetence.
It did kind of surprise me, but it doesn’t really matter as England will probably not contend for any great honors in the near future. I would kind of have expected the FA to be in communication with dear Fabio, before deciding on the captancy…it should be up to the coach, who is his no1 on the field. This probably has to do with the strange elevated position the captain holds in the UK, it took me and my friends a few minutes to remember who is the current Dutch captain…and even then it wasn’t important enough to actually check on our I-phones. It’s just the guy who says ‘heads’ or ‘tails’ right?
It’s funny, we English seem to spend a lot of time asking each other who it is who actually cares about the captaincy, and why people get worked up about it. But the press, especially the tabloid press, go on and on about it, to the point where you can almost get hypnotised into believing that it matters. It doesn’t, of course; as you say, he’s just the guy who tosses the coin and exchanges pennants at the start of the game.
I agree that they weren’t going to win unless they played catenaccio, and then still got some luck on top of it. It worked against Spain back in November, but would England even be happy with a Euro victory playing that way? I suppose, but barely. There’s some incredible young talent right now, especially at the Big 5, and if I were in charge, I’d go with them and try to start working toward that quarterfinal finish in Brazil in 2 years. 
Hart
Walker-Jones-Smalling-Baines
Cleverley-Wilshere-???
Sturridge-Rooney-Welbeck
Or they could put Jones in midfield and get another CB.
Add in Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Josh McEachern, Rodwell, Richards, and some others. Leave Gerrard, Lampard, Rio, Terry, Cashley, Berry, and the rest at home. I’d feel bad for Carrick, but he never got the look he deserved, so he wouldn’t have to feel too bad.
Oh, and bring Scholes, just because he’s still the best passer in England and certainly isn’t part of the circus!
Exactly, the English public and press is ridiculously over-the-top in their magnifying glass examination of every decision and every result that by the time a World Cup or Euro comes around it is almost impossible to play amidst the building angst.
I’d love to see England change their style to something a little more pleasing on the eye and internationally effective but that possibility is 10-15 years in the future if…if, we start now. And who is going to start it? And what England manager would promote it? Redknapp? nope, Pardew? nope. I literally have run out of ideas after two names.
mkecane, I’m on your side here. I’d far rather go out in a blaze of glory with the youngsters than plod our way to the semi’s, at least they might excite me for once, at least that might give me a glimmer of hope for the future.
God, it depresses me.
There is no evidence that the FA knows anything about winning international events.
There is no evidence that the FA know anything about training young players or coping with pressure from rich clubs.
It’s also true that the English press will follow a predictable route with the new manager:
I remember 1966, when we won the World Cup at home. (Yes, I am that old. Get off my lawn!)
I don’t remember winning anything since then (or even reaching a final.)
Is Glenn Hoddle still around?
Why not David Icke??
He wasn’t even good on Grandstand.
Canada learned this lesson in hockey. The best overall talent doesn’t always make the best team.
Didn’t Redknapp recently claim that he was illiterate to get out of a tax avoidance thing? He’s the best thing England’s got for manager?
Wasn’t that long ago that English clubs wouldn’t even sign foreign players for fear of fan revolts. I distinctly remember an issue of FourFourTwo that came out in… 1996, maybe? with “The Year Johnny Foreigner Showed Us How To Play” as the cover story.
So managers who can read and write are a big step for us.
I just have a sneaking feeling that Redknapp will turn it down, and they’ll give it to Nice Uncle Roy (Hodgson), maybe just for this tournament. (He’s practically an academic, by English football standards. He is rumoured to read books for pleasure, for example.)
And I wouldn’t mind that at all. I genuinely like Hodgson and think that he deserves another crack at a top job, having been treated harshly by Liverpool and their fans. And he does have one World Cup tournament under his belt, where he actually did OK with Switzerland.
The FA should embrace austerity and appoint Ricki Herbert at twice his current New Zealand salary (bringing him up to approximately 80,000 pounds per annum). He ran the only unbeaten team at the last World Cup after all.