Fabio Capello has fairly surprisingly resigned as the England manager after meeting with the FA today. I had nothing against Capello’s tactics (the problem was that the players weren’t performing) and I prefer to see a manager given ample time to get settled before deciding he is not the right fit. That said, I am glad that he is gone, because I think his backing of Terry made him untenable. I strongly dislike Terry. Regardless of whether or not it’s true that he racially abused Ferdinand, Terry is a very sleazy character. For him to be the public face of the England football team speaks very poorly of the sport. (Though there are quite a few other things that do so more effectively.) I don’t think someone like Terry would ever have been allowed to captain the England cricket team. (Compare Terry to Strauss for a moment.) It is the fact that Capello could still support Terry as captain that made him unsuitable for the job as manager, and hopefully he would have been sacked if he had tried to stay on.
It does bring up the question of who will replace him. Redknapp is the odds-on favourite as he meets the main requirement of being English at a time immediately after a foreigner was in charge. He’s also done a very good job at Spurs, and I think he would do well for England. It would be a blow for Spurs, however and honestly I think Redknapp has a much better chance of success at White Hart Lane than Wembley. The second favourite is Stuart Pearce, who is managing the U-21 side and will apparently manage the friendly against Holland. I think I would prefer Pearce to Redknapp for the long term. Partly because Tottenham are the only team I like left in the title race, but also because Pearce will have seen quite a few of the players already and have some experience in getting them to play together as a unit, which is one of the things that seems to have been problematic England in the past.
Defensive Indifference 