The fact must be faced. At international level, we have a managerial vacuum. Not just in England (though the bookies’ shortlist of possible successors to Bobby Robson, the black hole of English football, is deeply depressing) but in the game at large.
Why else would France, beaten in Yugoslavia last weekend, have turned to Michel Platini, who had never been a manager at any level?
Why else would Holland, deserted by Rinus Michels, call up the unpopular Thijs Libregts, who has been at daggers drawn with Ruud Gullit ever since he made a disparaging remark about the player’s race when Gullit was a youngster?
Why else would West Germany, whose qualification rules for club managers are so stringent, have appointed Franz Beckenbauer, another who had never managed at any level?
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Why else would Brazil return so frequently to Carlos Alberto Silva, the manager they have kept dangling in cruel suspense while they searched for a successor?
That Graham Taylor should be the bookies’ favourite is daunting indeed. Brisk and lively though he be, achiever of results with several clubs though he is, tactically more flexible though he has shown himself with Villa this season, Taylor has still to live down his promotion of the long-ball game, the junk football with which Watford were successful for a while, and which constitutes the greatest menace to English soccer.
Taylor’s unhappy experience with England’s Youth team, who failed to win the European tournament even at home, may lie in the past, but scarcely speaks in his favour.
It is junk football which represents the real danger of being out of Europe, which Bobby Robson snatched up as a handy excuse after the Saudi Arabian fiasco, following that up with the mindless, meaningless, dated expedience of a B international team. Instantly endorsed, of course, by his mentors, the diehards and blowhards at Lancaster Gate.
Liverpool’s dazzling performance against Arsenal last Wednesday shows that true quality and success can still be achieved here by playing true football, by calling on skill, flair, positional sense and ingenuity. Liverpool remain an icon for our clubs at large, though far too many of them now take the short cut with those long-ball tactics which, at international level, can lead only into a blind alley.
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Bobby Robson does not employ such tactics with England, thank goodness, though there was a spell, six years or so ago, when he did nothing to suggest he was out of step with the FA coaching department, then dressing up biff-and-bang in a gimcrack garb of pseudo scientific theory.
The diehards and blowhards have made it clear that Robson will stay; to that extent, the wilder elements of the tabloid press have played into their hands, allowing them to strike synthetic attitudes of decency and tolerance. It is surely evident that the continuance of an England manager bankrupt of ideas and imagination must have a dire effect on our game.
Moreover, for all the facile talk of “character assassination’’, has the FA given any thought to Robson’s dealings with the press, and their legacy of mutual mistrust?
In Mexico three years ago, he told journalists that “if you people didn’t exist, my job would be twice as easy and twice as pleasurable’’. No doubt. The following year, in Los Angeles, he was economical with the truth when he denied that Bryan Robson had yet again dislocated his shoulder, against Mexico; economy in a wretched cause, since it meant taking a crippled player to the World Cup.
Last summer a daily newspaper’s reporters were astounded to see it leaked exclusively in a rival tabloid that Glenn Hoddle would play against Holland; as he did. No excuse for vendetta, but an aspect worth remembering.
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Who, then, ideally could take Robson’s place? Curiously, having been against them for so long, I find myself moved to push the claims of Brian Clough, though this may seem the stuff of fantasy, even when applied to the B-team job he says he wants.
Ideally, I would appoint Clough part-time and for a limited period. The old objections to him seem as valid as ever. He is a maverick, authoritarian, arrogant figure, who prevails over his Nottingham Forest players because they are his dependants; which England’s would not be.
There could be no question of appointing Clough permanently. But in a brief spell perhaps he could replace the present indecision and hangdog pessimism with decisiveness and drive. Perhaps he could make sensible choices and use intelligent tactics while the FA looked around.
Who else? There’s the rub. Howard Kendall and Terry Venables have compromised their claims this season. Jackie Charlton wouldn’t want to leave the Irish. Xenophobia would block the appointment of a foreign coach.
The logical corollary of our exclusion from European club football must surely be to bring European coaches and managers over here; an ideal way to achieve cross-pollination. Clearly it would be hard to get the best of them, the likes of the Soviet Union’s Valeri Lobanovski, who is also the manager of Dynamo Kiev, or Milan’s Arrigo Sacchi.
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The leading European managers can earn up to £300,000 a year. The FA could surely pay such a sum if they wanted, but it’s doubtful if they would, even though to pay lesser salaries to lesser figures is a shaky form of economy.
Never mind, none of it will happen. The loyal blowhards and embattled diehards will see to that. Bobby Robson will still be with us. What rough beast is this, slouching towards Italy, to be stillborn?