PHOTOGRAPHS: jOHN FROST NEWSPAPERS, GETTY IMAGES, REUTERS
STEVE McCLAREN
Six months ago Steve McClaren’s job as England manager was on the line. Two wins later and with Estonia
and Russia next, David Edwards asks the nation’s top football writers whether the coach has won them over
hey call it the impossible job.
It turned Bobby Robson grey,
Glenn Hoddle ga-ga and Graham
Taylor into a turnip. Winning
football matches can be hard enough for
the England manager, but winning over the
people who write about football matches
makes it the most thankless task in sport.
But has Steve McClaren managed to convert
the press following recent results?
After a hellish first season in the hottest
seat in football, the England boss surprised
almost everyone by producing two wins
last month against Israel and Russia. With
Estonia and Russia again in the next six days,
ShortList collared four of the biggest names
in football journalism – men who wield as
much power over the position as the FA – to
find out if he has done enough to get them
on side. The message is clear: they still don’t
think he’s the right man for the job.
McClaren was up against it from the start
of his reign. Sven-Göran Eriksson had gone
on too long, England’s players flopped at the
2006 World Cup and McClaren, Eriksson’s
right-hand man, was in many people’s eyes
part of the problem not the solution.
T
wiNNiNg oVER ThE SCRibES
The football correspondents of the nine
national daily newspapers were asked by
Radio 5 Live last April who they wanted to
take over. Six said Martin O’Neill, two went for
Sam Allardyce and there was even a vote
for Alan Curbishley. McClaren, the
FA’s favourite, didn’t get a sniff.
In the face of such opposition
McClaren embarked on a
charm offensive with the
football writers, but the
way the writers saw it,
it was more offensive
than charming.
Martin Lipton,
chief football
correspondent
of The Mirror,
has been one of
McClaren’s staunchest
critics and cites media
relations as one
of the key areas
of conflict.
“The problem
with McClaren is
that he doesn’t
understand how we
work,” says Lipton.
In an effort to
“get” how the press
think, McClaren
chose to curry
favour with certain writers and ended up
alienating others. Unfortunately for him,
many of those write for the biggest papers.
As Lipton says: “He made a mistake in
trying to recruit a coterie of favourites.
You have to treat everyone the same.”
“My admiration for McClaren will go up
if he legitimately leaves Lampard out”
Sam Wallace, The Independent
For all his faults, that was how Eriksson
treated the media and the media came
to respect it. “I quite liked the way Sven
did things,” says Henry Winter, the Daily
Telegraph’s football correspondent.
“He had no friends in the media, so
nothing would leak out. There has been the
suggestion with McClaren that one
or two things have leaked.
Call me an old cynic but
I’m always distrustful
of managers who try to
be nice to me.”
The Independent’s
Sam Wallace agrees
that McClaren has
been wasting his
time trying to
schmooze the media.
“The trouble with
First one to take their
shirt off gets dropped…
McClaren is that he
was desperate to
cultivate the media.
He has to realise
that it doesn’t make as much difference
as people think.
“Ferguson can still dominate a room
of journalists just by his menace,” adds
Wallace. “Mourinho would always try to be
the smartest, the quickest and the funniest.
McClaren just hasn’t
quite got that yet
and so people are
impertinent around
him. That won’t
change, even if he
gets to Euro 2008,
the big-hitters will still
feel he’s there to be
chased. He doesn’t
have many defenders
in the press.”
However, there is one thing that McClaren
can still do which will transform his standing
among the press: drop Frank Lampard.
ThE LAMpARd pRobLEM
Matt Lawton, the Daily Mail’s football
correspondent, thinks Lampard will be the
defining issue for McClaren. “I want to see
the courage from him to leave Frank out
when he’s got Lampard, Steve Gerrard and
Owen Hargreaves available. That will say to
everybody that it’s not about reputation,
it’s about finding a winning formula.”
Winter agrees: “We had lunch with
McClaren and asked him why he persists with
Gerrard and Lampard in central midfield. He
said, ‘They are both world-class individuals,
who would you drop?’ And everyone said
Lampard. He was surprised.
“The Lampard issue is the crux for
journalists. My admiration for McClaren will
go up if he legitimately leaves Lampard out.”
Wallace backs this up. “McClaren is too
easily bullied and so has to do something
remarkable. If he made a tough decision on
Lampard he’d get loads of support. People
would love it if he said, ‘Frank’s a great player
but he’s got to sit this one out.’”
But at least McClaren has started winning
matches, something that seemed beyond
him after that dark night in Croatia a year ago
and during that painful first half in Barcelona
against Andorra, when even the fans turned
on the team and the manager.
The two 3-0 Wembley wins over Israel and
Russia last month put the Euro 2008 finals
back within range, but the correspondents
aren’t going overboard.
“There are a lot of frustrations that
haven’t gone away just because of two
results,” says Winter. “The fact that he’s had
a good 180 minutes at Wembley is great as
we want the England team to do well, but
people are keeping their powder dry until
the Russia game on Wednesday.
“I’m not going to change my tune. If
England get a good result in Moscow, or even
just draw, and qualify for the finals he’s fine.
But with this group and this squad of players,
he should qualify.”
Martin Lipton thinks luck played a big
part in the two recent victories. “He wouldn’t
have played Gareth Barry if Hargreaves had
been fit. As it happened, Barry played himself
into the team.”
But Lipton saw several positive points,
not least McClaren’s dealings with the media
afterwards. “He spoke about both games by
not trying to claim everything was rosy and
that there’s still room for improvement. For
once there was a recognition that this was
a base camp and not a summit.”
So there is some hope that the England
manager is rising to the challenge at last. “He
definitely has more credit in the bank,” says
Matt Lawton. “He’s woken up to the fact that
he was preoccupied with playing the media
rather than just being a coach.”
That means picking the right team and
making some tough decisions. “He needs to
realise he will command more respect if he
makes some big calls,” adds Lawton. “And
Lampard is the biggie. If he puts Gerrard back
out on the right, he’ll lose all of us.”
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