Since Fabio Capello resigned from his England post in early February, the media has gone into overdrive at the prospect of Harry Redknapp succeeding him.
However, while the current Spurs manager is the red-hot bookmaker’s favourite to lead his country into the Euro 2012 finals, punters looking for a bigger return on a free bet may want to back a candidate at longer odds.
Step forward Glenn Hoddle.
This past week, former England boss Hoddle has been touting himself for a return to the post he was sacked from back in 1999 after making controversial remarks about people with disabilities.
He has even gone as far to say his life would be “incomplete” if he were to die and not have the chance to manage England again.
In terms of England “success”, he did OK. He won 17 of his 28 matches in charge, drew six and lost five, a win percentage of almost 61 percent.
Not as high as Capello’s 66.7% win rate, statistically positioning him as the most “successful” England manager of all time although the Italian of course did not take change of as many games as the likes of Sven Goran Eriksson, Bobby Robson or World Cup winning boss Alf Ramsey.
But, going on win percentages alone, Hoddle is the second most successful. He took England to the second round of the 1998 World Cup, as well as Capello did in 2010 and has more experience at international level than Redknapp.
After the circumstances surrounding his dismissal more than a decade ago, he would not be the politically correct choice but compared to other former managers like Steve McLaren (50%), Graham Taylor (47.4%) or Kevin Keegan (38.9%) appointing Hoddle is unlikely to be a disaster.
The alternative to Redknapp as far as the betting goes is current West Bromwich Albion manager Roy Hodgson who is a vastly experienced manager on the international stage.
Prior to spells in charge of the United Arab Emirates and Finland, Hodgson guided Switzerland to third in the FIFA rankings, taking them to the World Cup in 1994 and Euro 1996.
But, I quite like the idea of recalling an England “old boy” to the post and my choice would be Terry Venables.
His win percentage is not the highest at 47.8 percent, but he is arguably England’s most “successful” manager in recent years after taking his country to the semi-finals of Euro 96 – losing on penalties to eventual tournament winners Germany.
Venables has already parked up at “Wembley” too – in an technical advisor role at non league Wembley FC who play in the Combined Counties League Premier Division.
Perfect!
Who would you like to see in charge of England? Let us know in the comments below!
