English football innovation: the best jobs going to the best people

“I have a vision that nobody else has. I’ve got bravery that no other coach has probably had. So, do you know what? Thank your lucky stars. I’m here. I’m here to stay. And I’m going to continue to keep improving. I’ve got a long way to go but I think with the set of players we’ve got and with my philosophy, I think we can go a long way. I live and breathe it, and I never have a bad day.” Bill Shankly? Brian Clough? Jock Stein? No, actually it’s, er, um … Philip Neville – two months after his England team, a side that should’ve been world champions, meekly subsided in the semi-finals, beset by strange instructions, odd formations, and inexplicable selections.

Seven months later, Big Phil was gone – though it was his appointment in the first place that should raise questions. His coaching career began in 2013 with England U-21 men – they lost all three games at the Euros – and continued at Manchester United, when he joined Steve Round and Jimmy Lumsden in David Moyes’s much-fabled brains trust. Sure enough, nine months after arriving, Moyes and his boys were ejected from Old Trafford, so a year or so later Neville moved to Valencia, serving under Nuno Espírito Santo and then his brother Gary, for the three months it took them to get sacked. This pedigree – 0 games as manager, 0 successes as coach and 0 experience of women’s football – earned him the England job, an appointment that might’ve been funny were it not to the detriment of a terrific group of players and reflective of the ludicrous privilege that infects football, sport and everything. But now look!

Once, England had brilliant players with an untried manager scraping by on talent; now they have a brilliant team with a talented manager bulldozing everyone with