Words of wisdom from our illustrious England manager Steve McClaren as he prepares to give Scott Parker his first start for England against Croatia.
"Scott has been training for a week with us and he really impressed me seeing him at close hand. Since the last time he was with us, a couple of years ago, he has come on and he epitomises what the English game is all about. He can play, pass, tackle...
Or, given the recent performance against Macedonia and the diabolical World Cup campaign under McClaren's big buddy Sven Goran Eriksson, surely he epitomises everything that appears to be lacking from the national side.
I'm not sure about McClaren, he annoyed me when he was manager of Middlesbrough. Far too smug for his own good and it seems to me he got the England job for two fatally flawed reasons.
1) A glowing job reference from Sven
Erm, considering the Swede led arguably this country's most talented group of players to another quarter final exit with ultra-conservative tactics, but still left a multi-millionaire is he the best person to pick his successor? And surely, given his close proximity to the Eriksson's
regime, wasn't McClaren part of the problem?
2) The mistaken belief he is an attack-minded manager.
This sums up the ignorance the media and the FA. Middlesbrough were not - and never would they have been - an attractive or cavalier attacking team under McClaren.
They were pragmatic, but ultimately conservative and cautious and bore an uncanny resemblance to the England team of Eriksson's design.
One goal leads were defended, not built on and set-pieces were pivotal. If he had still been in charge at the Riverside, I bet McClaren would have tried to sign David Beckham this summer.
The popular image of McClaren comes from two stunning Uefa Cup fightbacks against Basle and Steaua Bucharest.
They were fantastic matches, but it is hardly revolutionary for a manager whose team needs to score four goals to progress in a knockout competition, to throw on all his available strikers is it? Yet McClaren is given mastermind status for doing just that.
I prefer to remember the image of the disgruntled Boro fan hurling his season ticket in McClaren's direction during a 4-0 home defeat to Aston Villa back in February, a result which left the club hovering dangerously close to the relegation zone.
How times change eh? Six months and a shock home win over Chelsea later and McClaren gets the England job after the FA failed to get the two outstanding candidates for the post, Guus Hiddink and Luiz Felipe Scolari.
Of course, beat Croatia in Zagreb tonight and McClaren will be sitting pretty again, but I fear there are still rather ugly times ahead - and it has nothing to do with the England's manager's ridiculous attempts to cover up his bald patch with a long fringe.
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