The Extinction of English Managers

By Saaceybill

As a football fan and a proud Englishman, I worry that England are not producing quality managers. Compare to their counterparts like Scotland who have managers such as David Moyes, Paul Lambert and Craig Levien. While Wales have Chris Coleman and the late Gary Speed (rip). And than you have Northern Ireland who have Martin O’Neil and Brendan Rodgers who has done wonders with Swansea this season. All throughout football world young managers are being developed; Mourinho from Portugal was a fine example who worked under Bobby Robson, moving on to Pep Guardiola and Andre Villas Boas who at young ages have won trophies in their short career. England have some fine managers, but not many being tested at the top level of domestic football, never mind European football, managers like Lee Clark! Where Scotland have David Moyes & Paul Lambert they are playing top teams week in week out and gaining valuable experience and the likes of AvB are playing amongst the best Europe has to offer.

Where as the best of English are stuck in lower league (no disrespect meant) gaining little experience on world football. So that makes me wonder, with our managers years behind their foreign counterparts and our league heavily depending on foreign imports (players and managers) will our international game ever reach the levels of, for example the current Spain side, or those of Brazil and France when they dominated world football? When you look at the English Premier League 'The Best League In The World' there are only 3 club teams with English managers, Harry Redknapp (Tottenham) Alan Pardew (Newcastle) and Roy Hodgson (WBA) and collectively those 3 have won an FA Cup, an Inter Toto Cup, a handful of domestic promotions, 2 Swedish Titles & Danish Title. Which you can't compare to the likes of AvB & Pep Guardiola. I don't think it's too much to ask for to have a young English manager doing what those two are doing in football; after all we are home to the best league in the world and we did invent the game. So with that being said, who is the best young up and coming English manager? Lee Clark? Aidy Boothroyd? Would you include Mowbray and Pardew in this list? They're both in their 50’s compared to Redknapp and Hodgson who are in their mid 60's. I feel it's time to step the likes of Lee Clark up to a higher league, see what he can do! Our golden generation of managers has passed us by, Glenn Hoddle, Terry Venables, Sir Bobby Robson, and Graham Taylor! It's now time to rebuild a new era, so we don't have to rely on mediocre managers like Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce for the future of our national team! We don't want to have to go through another Steve McClaren incident do we?!