Our glorious leader has been quoted as saying that he’d rather fancy a crack at that England malarkey once he’s finished his business with Spurs. He sees Fabio as upping and leaving “sooner rather than later” – which presumably means that he’d be happy to exit N17 along a similar time-frame.
Some quotes, for your delectation:
For sure I would love to be England manager one day. It depends if I’m doing a good enough job at Spurs and I plan to do a good job here.
I didn’t really see myself getting that job anyway. I thought that after what happened to Steve McClaren the FA would go for a big-name foreign manager. It was inevitable.
They hired Fabio Capello and that was the right choice. Everyone can see that he has done a fantastic job.
There is no doubt Capello will move on, probably sooner rather than later. I don’t see him here forever. But I am 61 and once my job is done here I would have time left to be England manager.
If that opportunity should ever arrive – fantastic. It would mean I had taken this club forward.
First thing to point out is that this is probably just another sensationalist product of the 24-7 media machine, which is now obliged to over-analyse every throwaway comment, and dedicate time to turning molehills into steaming great big mountains. It strikes me as a bit of a non-story. I don’t know the context of ‘Arry’s words, but I presume he was given a few dozen questions after last night’s Shakhtar game, and one way or another the topic wound round to the England team. “Would you still fancy the England job?” “Does the Pope sh*t in the woods? By heck I would, you betcha.” And bingo, we have a back-page exclusive.Presumably this will incur the wrath of the more hot-blooded down at the Lane, chuntering about “loyalty” and “contracts” and other such phrases completely alien to footballers. Personally I can do little more than raise an amused eyebrow. It’s a cynical sport, in which the only obvious loyalty is to number one. Having merrily urinated over Southampton and Pompey a couple of times, it would be no major shock if ‘Arry dumped our lot at the prospect of a bigger gig. And really, could any football fan begrudge any football manager a crack at the England job?
The only surprising element of this is the mild lack of tact. I would imagine the PR suits generally instruct football folk not to make the sort of comments that could be interpreted by the crazed masses as disloyalty to the team. Somehow, Salomon Kalou has been quoted this week as saying that it’s his dream to end up at l’Arse. No idea what he actually said, or even what language he was speaking when he said it, but it’s presumably been tweaked a little and another back-page exclusive is born.
So it’s no big shock to learn that ‘Arry still covets the England job, but he might do his prospects a world of good by knuckling down with his present employers. Before I even finish typing that sentence I can hear him bleating in my ear “We only had two points when I took over…” Yes ‘Arry, bravo. Now get us playing some snappy one-touch stuff, get us winning games against the likes of Sunderland and ‘Boro – traits we proudly exhibited just a couple of years ago – and then maybe the England job will be a bit more than fanciful paper-talk on a quiet Friday morning.