An Englishman for England, how English!

The English Football Association will announce on Thursday the man(ager) who will take over for Sven-Goran Erickson after this summer's World Cup in Germany. All the kings horses and all the kings men, and no English coaches qualified to manage again ...

The top five English teams are led by non-English managers:

Chelsea, coached by Portugeuse
Manchester United, coached by a Scotsman
Liverpool, coached by a Spaniard
Arsenal, coached by a Frenchman
Tottenham, coached by a Dutchman

Drop to sixth and Blackburn and you'll find the first Englishman -- Mark Hughes. Seventh is a compatriot, but Newcastle's Glenn Roeder is still just a caretaker manager.

The reason why the English team doesn't have an English manager -- the best managers are not English!

Many English crave a sort of affirmative action – they lust for the FA to hire an Englishman to manage the team. For what? Another debacle like the merry-go-round of homegrown former players who managed the team a decade ago? A top team requires a top manager. Simple.

If all the players on all the teams in the world could rank the top 50 football managers in the world, and a points system would sort out the consensus top 50, you might find one or two cracking the list. But surely none in the top 10 or 20. Who would? Not Sam Allardyce, Steve McClaren or Stuart Pearce. The English team, among the top 10 teams in the world both by ranking and by actual quality, deserves one of the top managers, regardless of nationality.

Hiring a manager just because he is English is akin to a club team hiring a player just because he is English, and as those top five Premiership teams clearly illustrate, it's not about where the player is born, it's about the jersey he wears and his allegiance to the crest. Arsenal supporters did not cry foul when their North London side played Real Madrid in the Champions League this term, and the Spaniards fielded two blokes – David Beckham and Jonathan Woodgate – and the Gunners fielded none. Arsenal won the two-legged tie, and did the fans complain because none of the players or the manager were from Merseyside, Lancashire or Bath? No, they simply bathed in the success of their team.

That's what true Englanders ought to do – enough with the Allardyce, McClaren and Pearce for England! If Allardyce or McClaren or Pearce were really the top men, they wouldn't be managing at Bolton, Middlesbrough and Manchester City. The promise of golden boy David O'Leary and old Harry Redknapp may have faded. Neither has truly reached his potential on the club level. It wasn't long ago that it seemed all English teams were managed by Grahams -- Graham Souness at Liverpool, George Graham at Arsenal and Graham Taylor with the national side.

But with Big Phil resigned stay far from the FA's fray, it is apparently going to be McClaren. Good for Steve, but not good for England. If Middlesbrough's success in the UEFA Cup earns him the honour, good for him. But it won't be long until we're back to the way it used to be ... stuck on a roundabout.

Today's Sky Sports interview Martin Tyler conducted with McClaren clearly indicated that McClaren is mum until Thursday, and then he become pop-in-waiting, the manager-elect to the English throne. He'll deputize Sven to see through what may be -- in light of Rooney's fractured fourth metatarsal -- another disappointing World Cup Finals. Then it's his programme heading toward Euro 2008 and South Africa 2010 qualifying. That is, if he isn't sacked straightaway as the FA returns to the pratice of revolving English managers every few months. The lions seemed destined to have another lamb as manager, while the top men toil overseas or domestically with the top clubs.

Perhaps by South Africa they'll have steered back on course and hired the top manager for the job – whether he's Portugeuse, Scottish, Spanish, French, Dutch or, gasp, American.