"The rainbows will come out again in Israel"

The England Manager, S McClaren, following a pathetic defeat of England by Spain in Manchester  on 6 Feb 2007

After Sven the FA turned to the Middlesbrough manager to restore the faith of English people in the English team.

This was the man, less we forget, who was in charge for Arsenal 7 Middlesbrough 0.  This is how the Middlesbrough manager responded:

"Down to 10 men with six teenagers on the park it was always going to be difficult. I've told the kids they're going to be good players in the future.

"They're the future of Middlesbrough football club. and this is an experience they'll always remember."

Now let's consider this.  Six teenagers?  Well yes, except that 3 of them came on as substitutes on 61 and 70 minutes.  Now what sort of maniac brings on untried teenagers when your team is already 4-0 down?   What you do in those circumstances is you put on your seriously experienced players to hold the score down to 4-0 so that the result is not embarrassing.

But to bring on 3 teenagers and then say that was the reason why things went wrong is simply to be so far removed from reality that men in white coats should be called.  In fact men in blazers came along and said, "this is the sort of man we want to run England."

Of course with such a man, nothing is ever his fault.  "I'm not making excuses but we had half a team injured" (his famous comment after an utterly appalling display on Feb 7 2007 in a friendly against Spain, was followed by the Middlesbrough chairman Steve Gibson saying that the problem with the disastrous run of England under the McClaren leadership was "not due to Steve McClaren," but instead "due to the big Premiership clubs.... The Liverpools and the Arsenals - what are they contributing at national level?"

Perhaps the answer is that Liverpool and Arsenal are football clubs who have the job of winning competitions held for clubs, and that they are continuously hampered by the bizarre and eccentric activities of nutcase international managers like Steve McClaren.

Last modified: February 23, 2008