Friday, December 07, 2007

The Special One

I don't especially like Jose Mourinho - the man's obvious arrogance aside, his tactics at Chelsea with the wonderful players at his disposal seemed unduly negative at times - but there is no doubt that he is the man favoured by readers of this blog to restore the fortunes of England's national side.

The full result of my poll on who should succeed Steve McClaren was as follows:

Jose Mourinho 40%
Fabio Capello 13%
Martin O'Neill 12%
Harry Redknapp 9%
Arsene Wenger 7%
Guus Hiddink 6%
Sven Goran Eriksson 5%
Stuart Pearce 3%
Luis Felipe Scolari 3%
Sam Allardyce 2%


The interesting thing about this, particularly on a blog that is read by quite a lot of English nats, is that readers don't seem that bothered about the nationality issue. Only 26pc went for a British manager as opposed to 74pc for a foreigner.

As I've said before, my choice would still be Hiddink, on account of his track record in achieving success with ordinary players. Wayne Rooney and possibly Gabriel Agbonlahor aside, let's not kid ourselves that we are currently awash with young talent in this country.

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4 comments:

Gareth said...

I'm an English nationalist and I voted for Mourinho.

I don't see what my political persuasion has to do with my choice of England manager.

It's just a nasty rumour put around by British nationalists that English, Scottish and Welsh nationalists are xenophobic.

Anonymous said...

Hi Paul, - saw your post on Iain Dale's site re your old stomping ground at the Lobby...thought the following post on Madame Arcati could be of interest?

Hi Madame

More antics at your favourite paper - the Sunday Times...

Apparently, the Mail on Sunday's deputy political editor Jonathan Oliver is to replace outgoing Sunday Times political editor David "Crackers" Cracknell. Cracknell quit to join an ailing lobbying firm originally set up by Labour's fundraiser Johnny Mendelsohn called FD something or other ... after Independent on Sunday political editor Marie Woolf was brought in over his head by the Wapping management.

Most recently, Oliver was behind the MoS story on David Abrahams - believed by many to be a "drop" form Tory HQ's research dept. Ironically, Oliver would have stayed on at the MoS - but for his boss Simon Walters, the political editor.

When Walters was moved upstairs to replace the Mail's executive editor (politics) Peter Dobbie, Walters - nicknamed "Shifty" by Lobby colleagues for reasons too obvious and tedious to list - insisted in clinging on to the political editor title as well - much to the chagrin of Oliver. Still, the poor chap has got his revenge by disappearing to Wapping.

Chris Paul said...

I would definitely vote for Iain Dale. This would perhaps stop him from mixing up frontline jobs and bureaucrats. He is throwing his toys. Comments and links welcome.

Anonymous said...

There are even some urging Morrissey ro put himself forward see
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/sport/2007/12/10/the_fa_should_look_to_morrisse.html
And also if you fancy it
http://www.newstatesman.com/200712100009