FA refuse to rule out going foreign route again in search for new manager

Football Association chief executive Martin Glenn has vowed to seek advice throughout the game as he searches for a new manager to arrest England’s perennial tournament traumas.

Glenn will front a three-man panel charged with finding Roy Hodgson’s successor, alongside FA technical director Dan Ashworth and vice-chairman David Gill.

The runners and riders have already started to emerge, with U21 boss Gareth Southgate an early favourite and one-time heir apparent Gary Neville seemingly off the radar after resigning alongside Hodgson.

But Glenn says the decision will not be arrived at hastily and plans to take exhaustive soundings from stakeholders and experts.

“The process for finding a new manager is under way,” Glenn declared.

“We’re going to harness opinion and wisdom from the wider part of the game. We need to have a wider consultation of the game. It’s really important we get this right.

“We are going to be canvassing opinion from former managers, current managers, clubs and players to make sure we get a lot of wisdom.

“We want to move to a new approach, get a new management team, and it’s our commitment to go to tournaments as contenders and get over this brittleness,” he said.

Glenn, like several of his predecessors, must wrestle with whether or not to consider overseas candidates for the job. Sven-Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello are the country’s only foreign bosses to date, with both succeeded by a homegrown candidate: Steve McClaren, then Hodgson.

Names like Arsene Wenger, Rafael Benitez or Brendan Rodgers have been touted as possible compromises — born outside of England but with significant experience of the footballing culture.

For Glenn, though, it is a simple equation: Find the best available manager.

“We’ll be looking for the best person for the job. I’m not ruling out a non-English coach,” he said.

“I’m not going to talk about names, it’s not even 24 hours since we’ve gone out of the tournament, but I’ve been consistent in saying we will get the best people to take this exiting group of players further forward.

“We will are looking for the best person, not necessarily the best Englishman.”