The Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has suggested it may be too soon for the highly rated Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe to be thrown into the “furnace” of the England job.
Appearing before a parliamentary select committee, Clarke reiterated that the interim manager, Gareth Southgate, had two more matches in which to stake his claim for the full-time job in the wake of the premature departure of Sam Allardyce following just one game in charge.
However, Clarke urged caution over calls for Howe to be given the role. “When you look at people like Eddie Howe, the question isn’t whether he is a really good bloke, because he is. He’s a wonderful leader, he’s energetic, he’s honourable, he’s respected by football, he’s respected by footballers,” the chairman said.
“The question is: at what point to do you throw him into the furnace of being an international manager? Is it now, is it in five years, is it in 10 years? That’s something that he will be thinking about. Because it is a really tough role that most people fail in.”
Howe has been touted by some, including the culture, media and sport committee member Jason McCartney MP, as the man to replace Allardyce on a full-time basis. Howe, 38, has said he remains committed to Bournemouth but has also called the England role “the ultimate job”.
Clarke urged caution, warning against thrusting Howe into the job too soon. “Do we give him enough time to acquire the skills so he has a pretty good chance of success, or do we throw in early? That’s the trade-off we have to make. Talent like that you don’t want to burn by overexposing it too early,” he told MPs.
Southgate has already overseen two of the four matches for which he has been placed in charge – a 2-0 victory against Malta and a goalless draw in Slovenia – but it is understood that there will not be any discussion of what to do next until after matches against Scotland and Spain next month.
Clarke reiterated that the FA’s preference was for an English manager “if we can get one”, but that the overriding requirement was to get “the best man for the job”.
He said that the next full-time appointment would almost certainly be someone who had managed extensively in the Premier League, saying it would be “crazy” to give the job to a coach who had not coached in England – despite the fact that neither Sven-Goran Eriksson nor Fabio Capello had done so when they were made England manager.
