Best Manager of the England Soccerball Team That Wasn't Sir Alf Ramsey

it's venables now under competition from sven, but in time it will be capello

That's completely how I read it tbh.

On the basis that every other one could and should have achieved more (except maybe Hoddle, had he lived) I have to go with Bobby Hundreds

Robson seemed pretty lucky, to me. He stumbled onto his best team in 86 after losing players to injury and suspension, and then we kind of jammed our way thru to the semi in 1990 with some ugly, ugly wins against mediocre opposition. Losing the Euros in 96 under Venables, after an admittedly weak start, was far crueller.

sadly, for now, it is Sven

best at playing the FA for suckers

best at playing the laydeeeez

erm....sven was shit

did you guys actually watch england in world cups?

three consecutive quarter-finals is better going than any other England manager. simple as that really.

Eriksson's teams played some agonisingly dull football but were often quite technically efficient and he was pretty good at forcing opposition teams to join in the agonisingly dull football.

But Venables was surely helped by having a tournament at home and didn't have to qualify? Although that doesn't really detract a whole awful lot from the achievement.

Not knowing anything about Mercer through to Howe I'd go for Capello right this sec - man has got it right almost every time and might be the first person ever to try and address England's crappiness at penalties. xxp

Howe was never actually manager btw but I put him in cos he seemed hugely influential under Greenwood and possibly into the Robson era iirc?

Venables is highly regarded (including by me) I think because he had a "continental" grasp of tactics, probably the best tactician of this bunch, and also because that 96 demolition of Holland was a thing of beauty.

is Robson the only one who went on to enjoy some success after leaving the England job? not sure Taylor taking Watford back into the top flight really counts

Eriksson at Man City? Hoddle at Wolves was shite. McLaren at Twente?

eriksson had lots of success after leaving the england job. he's now got 500m in the bank instead of 100m.

Sven is definitely one of the better ones, but the way his teams meekly exited tournaments counts strongly against him. England should've won in 2004.

I don't think getting to three quarter-finals should be enough to swing it for SGE. If you're going to base everything on a 'We'll be soul-crushingly boring but get the results' approach, then you've actually got to get *all* the results (i.e. you've actually got to *win* something). England were the most unloveable and unwatchable team at the last World Cup, doing their best to fail to get out of the easiest group imaginable, and the exit to Brazil in the one before that was pathetic.

otm. sven was terrible, he did "enough" always but they never looked like a side that could actually win a big tournament. their performances in the two world cups under him were as bad as they have ever been in my lifetime.

Also, it's true Robson stumbled across his best team in 86, but I don't think he was necessarily luckier at getting his teams as far as they got than the other managers. I mean Venables (as has already been pointed out) didn't have to qualify for Euro 96, and we hosted it, but we started with a crap draw against Switzerland and could easily have gone out at the group stage if Scotland had actually scored their penalty. Also, our win against Spain was the equivalent of our win against Belgium in 1990.

I still believe Euro 96 is as close as we've come since 1966 to winning a tournament. England in 90 would have lost to Argentina in the final even if they'd got thru.

I think we'd have beaten Argentina if we'd got to the final - they were a bit shit and we'd have been really up for it. But I think Germany were much better than us in that tournament, and deserved it more, even if the semi-final was really close. The difference in 96 was that we really should have beaten Germany.

Maybe. Argentina were on a downward curve but Germany did plenty to make them look ordinary. We'd've been Gazza-less as well, which wouldn't have helped.

I was young but my memory of that world cup was that germany weren't actually v good in the final, and argentina just imploded.

Germany in full flow don't exactly play beautiful samba football tho.

these criticisms of Sven are valid but it doesn't mean he wasn't the best (performing) out of a bad (under-achieving or whatever) bunch. sadly. would say Robson if they hadn't been so poor in Euro 88 or so lucky in Italy. not a lot between them either way.

England were the most unloveable and unwatchable team at the last World Cup

Ukraine and Switzerland were worse

Seem to recall Poland and Paraguay being pretty ropey too but my short term memory isn't all that.

i guess we can let them off because they played fewer games in which to bore us

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one smart cunt in the room. bet it was ronan.

two smart cunts really, unless Hoddle is a lurker.