UNITED KINGDOM: FOOTBALL/SOCCER - English club managers react to the sacking of England coach Steve McClaren

Alex Ferguson, Martin O'Neill, Mark Hughes, Sven Goran Eriksson and Avram Grant react to England failing to qualify for Euro 2008 and the sacking of Steve McClaren. England's national team are not a lost cause despite their failure to qualify for the European Championship finals, Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said on Friday (November 23). The quality of English football has come under scrutiny since the 3-2 defeat to Croatia at Wembley on Wednesday which put England out of the competition and resulted in the sacking of coach Steve McClaren. Ferguson, the most successful club manager in English football history, believes, however, that there is still room for optimism and said McClaren's successor did not face a hopeless task. "I think it has become a near impossible, it's not impossible because you have to think there is a good thread in the England squad that is better than the performance of the other night. There are good players, that's the first thing. There's no point in saying everything is wrong and everything is black, it's not. There are good players about. Now there is no point in looking at these players and saying everything's wrong about English football and what's happening at grassroots level and all that, it's nothing to do with the present day players, as I said there are enough good players there to have a decent future for that particular squad of players," said Ferguson. Ferguson said the style of play in the English premier league was not counter-productive to fielding a successful national team. Unusually, United had no players in the England side on Wednesday. Wayne Rooney and Gary Neville will miss the joint leaders' league game against struggling Bolton at Old Trafford on Saturday through injury. Rooney has started light training following an ankle injury and Ferguson expects him to return against Fulham on Dec. 3. Since McLaren's departure, a string of home-grown managers have distanced themselves from the most pressured and thankless job in English football. Aston Villa's Martin O'Neill ruled himself out of the running for the vacant England manager's job on Friday. O'Neill, 55, an early favourite to take over from McClaren, told a news conference before Saturday's Premier League game at Middlesbrough that he was committed to his club. "I have a commitment here to the football club. The last time I didn't have a commitment, I was not in club management for other reasons anyway, and when the opportunity came up to be interviewed for England at the time, great, absolutely, I was absolutely flattered and went to the interview and obviously didn't do well enough so, now you have to ask yourself a question, well why would you be asked back again?", said the former Northern Ireland international, who was interviewed by the FA for the England position last time around. He was followed by Welshman Mark Hughes who has signed a new contract to June 2010 with Blackburn Rovers. "A number of names have been thrown out there but it's not a job that interests me at this time, I actually would like to try my hand at international management again but certainly not in the near future, more so when I'm a little bit greyer than I already am, I see that more towards the end of my managerial career, but not at this time," said Hughes. Former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson, who is now manager of Manchester City, said he felt sorry for McClaren, the players and the fans at England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008. "I feel like a lot of people, I feel sorry for the players, for Steve McClaren of course, and his staff, for the fans, looking forward to a big tournament and unfortunately England is not there, and for UEFA I feel sorry, they always want England in the big tournaments, UEFA and FIFA, but that happens sometimes and that's life, I'm not the England manager since a long time ago, I am Manchester City manager, and that's it. " said Eriksson. Chelsea manager Avram Grant, who was the former coach of Israel, said that what happened to the England players in his squad was some kind of tragedy. "I don't think they are happy but you know it's disappointing. You know I was also a national coach, not in a team like England with high expectations, but any country, the players are the best, what happened Wednesday for them is some kind of tragedy but they need to pull themselves and play for the team," said Grant.

ITN Source | November 24, 2007

Tags:. .task. .disappointing. .unusually. .unfortunately. .distanced