Football free bets used on the last England international didn’t bring much joy for football sports betting fans. Steve McClaren must now be on a short fuse whilst the side await their fate in the qualification for Euro 2008 tournament and the English national team continue to strive for an England manager who can take them forward.

It’s weird in the football world in this country that we can’t seem to make the step up from being a reasonable, competitive side to being a strong and consistent challenger for one of the top world rankings. Something just doesn’t add up when we have some of the best domestic teams in the world competing in some of the best league divisions in the world, then producing some of the best players in the world in certain positions and we can’t gel it all when it comes to international games. Is it our managers? Is it the FA? We have the players but we don’t seem to have anyone who can bring out the best in them - perhaps Jose Mourinho would be the best candidate!

Other games, namely cricket and rugby, are showing progress and development at the highest level but our football side seems to be very static and lacks initiative and direction.

All of us England fans want to see England in the Euro 2008 competition and for us not to be there makes the whole thing hollow as a spectacle for us. That said, I have to emphasised a point that I blogged about last winter on having a domestic coach rather than foreign. Why? Because I don’t believe that and international side with a foreign coach represents a truly national side. If our football team can’t cut it at the moment because we can’t find a coach of the highest ability in England - then so be it! It points to our game not having the right structure to produce coaches of the highest level and that’s where we now have to focus.

It’s a call to arms for the FA to look at this problem. When the English game gets into trouble, we shouldn’t have to scratch around and see who is out of a job around the world to select our new coach, we should be able to look at our national leagues and see which coaches are making the biggest changes, biggest improvements and maybe radical thinking in the domestic game.