Summer off

I can't remember seeing so many swear words in such a short space of time as between 8 and 10pm last night. If I were to repeat the messages here, it would give my blog more asterisks than a French children's library.

The cause of mine, and the nation's, vitriol, step forward (or backwards, please) Steve McClown.

No knee jerk reactions from me, oh no, I've not liked Steve McClown since, ooh, about two minutes after he'd got the job.

• October 2006, "Managing England should be one of the easiest jobs in football, yet people seem to go out of their way to make it more difficult than necessary."



• November 2006, get the retaliation in first, "McClaren must go"



• August 2007, my prediction after the Germany friendly, "England WON'T be involved in Euro 2008". To be fair, hardly mystic Meg stuff.



• September 2007, after a couple of good results, "Will Steve McLaren pick the same starting eleven against Estonia ? I doubt it, although I think he should. If he doesn't, will he regret it ? Possibly. If he doesn't get England through to EURO 2008 from this strong position, should he be asked to do one ? Definitely." He didn't, he probably does now and he has been.

This time last week he'd managed to mess up the EURO 2008 qualifying to such an extent that we had to rely on Israel doing us a favour at home to Russia. Thanks to a last minute Israel goal, qualification was back in our hands, we only needed a draw.

At home.

Surely even Steve McClown couldn't f**k it up from there.

But f**k it up he did.

Big time.

One centre forward, the criminally useless Peter Crouch, flicking long-balls on to, hang on, nobody, because as McClown's tactics dictated, he was on his own up front. D'oh.

He had a choice to make in goal, Paul Robinson's made some mistakes this season for Spurs, and in an England shirt, notably away at Croatia, so a safe pair of hands was needed. D'oh. One thing in Paul Robinson's favour is he's scored more Premiership goals this season than the forever poor Peter Crouch.

Playing Lampard & Gerrard together, even though they've proved to even the most sceptical viewer they're incapable of playing in the same team.

Making substitutions while defending a corner, basic stuff.

Having the best crosser of a ball on the bench while playing the clueless Peter Crouch.

Seeing that it was all going pear shaped after 15 minutes, but still waiting until half time to do something about it.

Carrying an umbrella, the great nancy boy.

And by common consensus, the England man of the match was the criminally useless, forever poor, clueless Peter Crouch. How poor were the rest of them ?

So, Steve McClown has gone, probably to pitch up at Middlesbrough when Gareth Southgate gets the sack, or Derby when they realise that Billy Davies isn't, in fact, one of the best managers in the country.

Who next ?

The review of the mistakes made the last time the FA recruited a coach is to be headed by Brian Barwick and reported back to the Chair of the FA. This is the same Brian Barwick who went out (in secret, but in reality, with half the nation's press) to offer the job to Filipe Scholari, who refused on the grounds of press intrusion, before offering it to Steve McClown who was always his "first choice" anyway.

And he's the one looking into what went wrong !!!

I'll save him the time. Three words on a sheet of signed FA headed note-paper:

IT WAS ME