WHILE Brian Barwick claims he is willing to leave "no stone unturned" in his search for Sven Goran Eriksson's successor, the Football Association's chief executive had better not be banking on adding to his air miles in the next six months.

Innumerable qualities spring to mind when you ponder the attributes desirable in an England manager but, if the great and the good of the game are to be listened to, one should be elevated above all others. The next England manager, it seems, simply has to be English.

Alan Shearer became the latest senior figure to unveil his Anglophile tendencies yesterday, claiming English ancestry counts for more than a career in international management. His views appear to echo the mood of the general population, with a series of polls showing 60-70 per cent support for a homebred boss.

The sentiment may be sensible - nobody wants to lose the patriotic bond between international football team and fan - but the blinkered dismissal of overseas candidates is not.

Appointing an Englishman would be all well and good if there was an outstanding domestic manager to choose.

Doing so when there isn't amounts to chauvinistic suicide.

If the Football Association is serious about enhancing England's chances of success in the 2008 European Championships and beyond, it needs to abandon the tired list of homegrown candidates currently being touted around Soho Square and turn its attentions abroad.

Currently, the top five Premiership clubs all have non-English managers and, while the likes of Sam Allardyce, Paul Jewell and Stuart Pearce are doing their level best to gatecrash the party, they remain hopelessly inexperienced at the highest level.

Pearce has been a Premiership manager for a little over ten months, while Jewell's top-flight experience extends to managing Wigan and Bradford.

Allardyce has a stronger claim to the England job but both he and another domestic candidate, Middlesbrough manager Steve McClaren, are novices on the international stage. Reaching the last 32 of the UEFA Cup does not constitute extensive European experience.

McClaren has, of course, been Eriksson's right-hand man for the best part of six years, but taking the odd coaching session and barking the odd instruction from the sidelines is hardly the same as carving out a career in the international game.

Contrast the likes of McClaren and Allardyce with current Australia manager Guus Hiddink, a Dutchman who expressed his interest in the England job yesterday.

When Hiddink leads the Socceroos into action this summer, he will be managing in his third successive World Cup finals. In 1998, he led Holland to the semi-finals in France, only to see them beaten on penalties by Brazil. Four years later, he also guided unfancied South Korea to the last four of the competition. Suddenly, Allardyce's ebullient Englishness does not look quite so appealing.

Similarly, Ottmar Hitzfeld's two Champions League successes with Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich convincingly trump McClaren's Carling Cup success and Alan Curbishley's midtable achievements with Charlton.

Just as Premiership clubs have learned to embrace overseas influences and adapt their traditional 'up-and-atem-approach' - or at least the more successful ones have - so those who run the England team have to accept the changing realities of the international game.

Kevin Keegan's disastrous spell in charge of England highlighted the deficiencies of an approach based solely on archaic notions of pride in the three lions and a battling 'British bulldog' approach.

That prompted the FA to look overseas and, while Eriksson has not turned out to be everything they hoped for, the rationale behind their decision remains valid.

For England to have the best chance of success, they need to be managed by the best person available. If that person is English, fantastic. If he isn't - and it doesn't look as though he will be - it should not be a cause for concern.

IRONICALLY, one of Eriksson's key tasks before the World Cup finals will be to help draw up the fixture list in the wake of tomorrow's Euro 2008 qualifying draw.

It seems strange to be looking so far into the future with a World Cup beckoning but, while Eriksson's managerial influence will not be felt once qualifying gets under way in September, the effects of his logistical input will be.

As ever, England will be keen to secure a home game to conclude their campaign and desperate to avoid playing crucial qualifiers in June 2007, when the country's footballers are sunning themselves at their holiday retreats.

As for the draw itself, England will be among the first seeds following their strong showing in Portugal, although dangers lie in wait.

With Austria and Switzerland sharing hosting rights for the tournament, there will be no play-off system in operation, it will simply be a case of the top two from each of the seven groups qualifying.

A best-case scenario would probably see England locking horns with Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Albania, Moldova and Andorra. If things do not go to plan, though, they could be drawn with Germany, Denmark, Republic of Ireland, Wales, Macedonia and Azerbaijan.

Either way, it's a safe bet that Poland or Turkey will figure somewhere given recent experiences.

NOT content with stealing the 2012 Olympics from under French noses, London has also poached the first stage of next year's Tour de France. On current form, there will be nothing left. Expect 2008's Prix De L'Arc De Triomphe to be staged at Epsom and 2009's French Open tennis tournament to come direct from SW19.

Published: 26/01/06