ascottboy

The Football Association have confirmed the departure of England coach Steve McClaren.

The FA board convened on Thursday morning after calling an emergency meeting and they wasted little time in confirming the termination of McClaren's contract.

McClaren's tenure was brought to an end less than 24 hours after England were knocked out of Euro 2008 at the qualifying stage.

England, who only needed a draw against Croatia to seal their place at the finals in Austria & Switzerland, lost 3-2 at Wembley on Wednesday.

Short reign

McClaren was contracted up to the World Cup in 2010 - but he will not be seeing out the remaining 33 months of his contract after England's first failure to qualify for the finals of a major tournament since 1994.

His reign is the shortest in the history of the English national team.

FA chairman Geoff Thompson said in a statement: "At a meeting of the FA board this morning the FA board unanimously decided to terminate the contract of England head coach Steve McClaren with immediate effect.

"We have also terminated the contract of assistant Terry Venables, also with immediate effect."

The FA now face the job of appointing a replacement - and given the difficulties they encountered before McClaren accepted the job, it is not a duty which will be taken on with a great deal of enthusiasm.

Aston Villa's Martin O'Neill is sure to be the early favourite - especially because others who were interviewed last time around, including Alan Curbishley and Sam Allardyce, have not built on their reputations since.

The most welcome appointments would be those of former Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho or current Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger.

However, it seems unlikely either man would entertain the prospect of picking up the poisoned chalice - even if they were promised the kind of eye-bulging salary McClaren's predecessor Sven Goran Eriksson used to command.

Alan Shearer and Stuart Pearce will be other names tossed into the frame. But clearly it is an unenviable task for Barwick, who tried, and failed to lure Luiz Felipe Scolari to England last time around.

Jimmy

Thought that was coming, what up with giving Terry V another chance, he was great when he was in charge, maybe Alan Shearer as his No2. Its time England had a good look at what’s going on in the Premiership, to many foreigners are being brought in and the home-grown talent are not getting a chance to gain much experience. Just look at Scotland we stopped bringing them in 2 years ago and started going with our young lads, I think this year it has proved to be the right way to go, our national side has got back some much deserved pride back and 3 teams still in Europe, 2 possibly going to make the last 16 of the champions league.

Haggis

The met Office have issued a flood warning in Scotland after 5 million Scots were found pissing themselves laughing last night....

sorry, couldn't resist!!!

Griff

Great idea but what If Arsenal win it???

Theo Walcott versus the world..lol

ascottboy

Justin Hoyte as well!

Griff

lol

I wasn't have a particular go at Arsenal, all the top clubs are the same, I was just pointing out that to make the England Team the team that wins the premiership wouldn't work.
I think myself that the players aren't as good as everyone thinks they are.
You don't see the top clubs around Europe clambering over themselves to buy our international players. That is because they aren''t as good as what they already have....unlike in England where we are buying players fom abroad to improve our teams.
I think people need this reality check that happened last night.

ascottboy

You make a very valid point, at arsenal wenger says that by having the best euopean players around that that brings on the young english players, but then most of them he sells on to reading and co! i do think there should be a ristriction on foreign players, but then that goes against the european human rights bill. So in fact what appears to have happened is that europe have managed to mess up the english national team!! DOH!

Griff

Now Wenger is a manager I'd love to take over England !!

I am a Liverpool fan and as well as go to the game I also go and watch our youth team (Under 18's) when they are playing at home.
We have some great talent down there. Benitez has been buying the best young talent around Europe for about the last 18 months. He must have signed about 15 players.
Now our local lads that are at the Academy have to compete against these foreign guys to get into the team and then moved up to the reserves and then first team. Most of them end up playing in the lower divisions, as they aren't good enough or better than the foreigners. If one is then they make it...ie ..Gerrard, Carragher, Owen, Fowler, Mcmanaman.
Now if there is a crop down there where there are no english lads good enough, then I as a fan wouldn't want us to promote them to the first team just because they are British. All that would mean is that when we came up against European teams in Competition, we would have inferior players and be beaten. I personally think that Wenger is right and if you want to make it as a player you have to be better than the foreign lads at the academy's. This would and should translate to the national team when we play the same foreign lads that our players have proved they are better than.
Also a manger at club level would be sacked if he tried out the young english lads and he wasn't succesful.

ascottboy

and now the news in full:

Scotland in chaos after England Croatia match
TRIBUTES are being paid to Scotland this morning after the entire country laughed itself to death.

The alarm was first raised at around 10pm last night as thousands of phone calls and text messages went unanswered.

Small groups of volunteers from Berwick-Upon-Tweed and Carlisle ventured north just after midnight only to find houses full of dead people gathered around still blaring television sets.

By dawn, as RAF helicopters flew over deserted city streets, it was clear that the whole country had suffered a catastrophic abdominal rupture. Wayne Hayes, a special constable from Northumberland, said: "We went into one house in Dunbar and found three men sitting on the sofa with huge smiles on their faces, still holding cans of 70 shilling. They seemed to be at peace."

He added: "In a house near Edinburgh we found a man face down on the living room floor with his trousers and pants round his knees.

"It seems he may have been showing his bare buttocks to the television when he keeled over."

Roy Hobbs, a civil engineer from Northampton, said: "I got a call from my friend Ian in Stirling at about 9.50pm. "He was already laughing when I answered the phone, but after about 25 minutes of the most vigorous and uncontrollable hilarity, everything suddenly went very quiet."

Moving tributes are already being placed along the Scotland-England border with many mourners opting to leave a simple bag of chips or a deep fried bunch of flowers.

sorry niether could i DOH!

Haggis

touche boss, touche!