Agreed - he was a bit of a dickhead with his comment, but let's be honest, if everyone was sacked for being a dickhead now and again, there'd be no one working anywhere. The usual liberal lefty elite crowd - offended by everything, responsible for nothing.... Bit like the whole Trump bollocks about women (block is a cock admittedly) - saw one woman today bleating on about how she couldn't believe men would make comments like that, err, no pet - you might have emasculated every last beard wearing, latte drinking, vegetarian "man" in your social circle - but guess what? The rest of us are still hanging in there, guarding our testosterone and chatting like blokes do in the pub rant over
Never said he was a genius. The Italians complimented him on how he took us out of the 'dark ages.' Tactically, he was the best England manager of the last 20 years. After Hoddle England have been decidely ****.
Exactly. I don't get all this "he hasn't worked since" stuff. Yeah he has ****ed off and done his soccer schools to keep in touch with the modern game, and not much else. But while football changes, it hasn't become some unfathomable different sport. The bloke proved himself more than capable, none have since reached the same level of competence. In fairness mind, the players he was working with then were far more talented than he'd be working with now!
The England manager job is all about tactical nous. Wheeler dealer types like Harry and Sam are completely out of place. Best England managers have been Venables and Hoddle. Dont know why its assumed that a good club manager will be a good international coach. Need to be able to make playing for England an enjoyable break from club football so that more of the players might be up for it as well.
Joachim Loew was a pretty bang average club manager. International level? Different class. Hoddle and Venables are the best England managers of the last 25 years. The fact they were hounded out by the press in this country is a disgrace. We could have got to a World Cup final under Venables.
Not going to be popular here but I'm not sure I saw enough of Hoddle at international level to be convinced by his credentials. Yes he took us to Italy and got the draw we needed but we did lose the home match 1-0 (Zola vs Walker, only ever going to be one winner). Eriksson took over after we had been humiliated at Euro 2000 and then we lost at home to the only team who had done worse (Germany), not only did we then qualify we rounded it off by winning 5-1 away to Germany in the most surreal match of international football witnessed since Holland 1996. People write him off as a failure but 3 quarter finals, 2 of which came down to penalties is at worst a par performance. Hoddle got knocked out second round and Venables got us a semi-final after winning the quarters on penalties. Fine Margins.
ps. As regard Hoddle iirc his comments were along the lines of "people who are disabled have sinned in previous lives". That isn't acceptable for any public official to come out with for so many reasons and he'll get no sympathy from me for being removed from office.
Being completely disenchanted with England is understandable but it has engendered a bit of "Whoever-the-FA-appoints-is-****-while-whoever-they-fired-was-god" thinking. Hoddles best international result was making the Group 16 stage. He was then doing fairly poorly for Euro 2000 qualification. He then had a series of mediocre managerial appointments before giving up on the whole trying to win football games thing. Venables had a good Euro 96 and then crashed and burned in club management before also giving up. Not messiahs, somewhat naughty boys.
Its just a religious belief at the end of the day. One I wholeheartedly disagree with I have to say, but I'm not going to judge people on what they believe. I've said many times I don't believe in anything like that but I respect everybody's right to hold their own views. They should also respect others right to be critical of those views. I'm just not that keen on all this pious attitude from the FA and the press acting as judge/jury/executioner. There are plenty managers and players playing all over the world who hold their own religious beliefs and push them down peoples throats. I've lost count of the number of footballers I've had to listen tell me that the brilliant game or bit of skill they just did was down to god or that god is great. Or holding up their tops to reveal religious messages. I get on with it. I'm sure there are many managers who follow perhaps more extreme versions of their religion all round the world and express those views at times. Its just the way it is, we're all different. Whereas I think he was naive and very stupid to express those views, he has always maintained it was twisted somewhat. I also think managers and players should be judged on more than just football. I just saw the whole thing as a media witch hunt and we got too bogged down in a mass over reaction. At the end of it all it comes down to football for me in the main. I saw massive progress under Venables and Hoddles, and two managers who understood the game and in particular international football. I don't think Eriksson or Capello for that matter did horrific jobs. However Eriksson arguably had a team to rival our very best talent wise. It is harder to judge the more recent managers - they don't have the same quality or numbers to pick from. The pool is narrowing all the time. The players care less and less. So you aren't really comparing apples with apples. I just think if you look at things Venables and Hoddle seemed to keep it very simple and put players in positions they were comfortable with, and had no fear of taking the important decisions. I am still of the belief somewhat though that it should be no more than a 2 or max 3 tournament job.
