After the sacking of Graham Taylor in 1993 a friend asked me who I thought the next England manager should be and I said Johan Cruyff. I thought the England set-up needed a big name who could shake the thing up a bit and walk, or threaten to walk away, if the press and others ganged up on him.

England find themselves in a similar situation today, but with a bigger challenge. A footballer’s career is short and after making the successful step from club to international football in Euro 2004 Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard will be past their peak by 2010. The other success of Euro 2004, Wayne Rooney, still has potential but needs to look after himself more on the field and avoid injury to the weak parts of his body, not easy in the cut and thrust of the Premier League.

I still think Gerrard could be a good player in the later stages of his career if he can slow down a bit and go back to basics and reduce the number of errors. I hear the coaching staff have been trying to do that with him at Liverpool this season but there have been problems with it. In the game against Croatia the attacking errors were just as bad as the defensive ones and too many free kicks in dangerous positions went astray. Gerrard should have been off at half-time. No-one mentioned that Shaun Wright-Phillips and David Beckham didn’t get enough of the ball even after they had caused problems for Croatia.

'Sam Allardyce has yet to prove that he can work with elite players or perhaps we should say here footballers who think they are elite players'

The new manager will have problems managing a team of old pros and young hopefuls. For some reason this mix never works in practice even though it should do in theory. The goalkeeping position is obviously a big problem - after the Euro 2004 exit I realised you can never win a tournament with a goalkeeper like David James and we are in a similar position now.

Now let’s have a look at some of the names which have been mentioned for the coaching job. Jose Mourinho would have trouble with his temperament in his dealings with the press. I think perhaps the job is a little bit too big for Martin O’Neill and perhaps some people would have a problem with an Irish manager. Alan Curbishley can’t stop card schools and Harry Redknapp is 67. Sam Allardyce has yet to prove that he can work with elite players or perhaps we should say footballers who think they are elite players.

Two names that are rarely mentioned are Frank Rijkaard and Sir Alex Ferguson. The top brass of the FA have a hang up about Scotland. Maybe the feeling with Rijkaard is that he is just the front man who goes on TV and that the success of Barcelona is down to the back-room staff. I think a manager from Italy might be a good idea as he might be able to improve the technique in defence.