Lamps on, Lamps off?

“Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. And if I stay it will be double. So come and let me know.” (Headon/Jones/Simonon/Strummer)

Plenty in life baffles me. Like, why it is that, at the slightest outbreak of anti-American snippiness, freshly-minted US flags are set alight in market squares througout the West-hating world. What efficient supply chain ensures this? Is it un-advertised inventory of the Mailboxes Etc. chain? Does every branch keep folded, fresh and flammable Stars & Stripes flags under the counter, next to the porn, just in case someone comes for a protest?

Then there's Frank Lampard. What is it about one of the most successful, prolific and naturally gifted midfielders England has ever produced that draws scorn from opposing fans and blinds his own club management to the value he can still bring to the game, even four months shy of his 35th birthday?

Is it is Lampard, himself? Perhaps each morning, on his 40-minute drive down the A3 from Kensington to Chelsea's Cobham training ground, he is playing The Clash's Should I Stay Or Should I Go? over and over again on his Ferrari's 1000-watt JBL sound system.

The vexed truth of the matter is, no one seems to know. In any given week for the last several months, at least one newspaper has claimed, exclusively, that Lampard may sign an extension to his Chelsea contract, while in the same week, at least one newspaper has claimed, exclusively, that there will be no extension and Lampard will be free to take his current superb form elsewhere at the end of the season.

In January, Steve Kutner, Lampard's agent, made it clear that Chelsea had told him his contract would not be extended under any circumstances. Last week, Kutner was saying that there had been no change in the situation. And still, the claims of an Abramovich U-turn go on.

Depending on who you read or who you believe, it's either Lampard's fault for wanting, allegedly, a two-year extension, or Chelsea's fault for wanting to prune it's expensive roster of over-30s. Take another view, and he's been offered a one-year extension, like Ashley Cole (who accepted), but has rejected it wanting the 24 months.

Either way - and who am I? - there should be some grown-upness injected into these proceedings. Lampard's strike against Brazil on Wednesday was no fluke, but an example of the sublime quality Lampard has been demonstrating for Chelsea in recent weeks, a goal-scoring form that has only been undermined, seriously, by the general malaise surrounding the club under Rafa Benitez.

A couple of months ago, Daniel Finkelstein, The Times' political leader writer and hobbyist football statman, calculated that Lampard was, de facto, the Premier League Player of the Decade. His methodology, which involved  correlating various parameters of in-game performance, calculated a league table of individual players, based on their contributions to the games they figured in. Cutting a long - and, admittedly, mind-boggling story short - Finkelstein's conclusion was that, ahead of players of positional consistency (led by the base of Chelsea's spine, Petr Čech), or points generated for each minute they were on the field of play (Cristiano Ronaldo), general excellence (Steven Gerrard) or game-changing impact (yes, Darren Bent), there could be only one 'Fink Tank' Premier League Player of the Decade: Frank Lampard.

There is only one Frank Lampard. There is only one player who is just five strikes away from equalling Chelsea's club record of 202 goals, currently held by Bobby Tambling. And this is a midfielder we're talking about, not some prolific, hits-'em-in-for-fun show-pony striker.

Equally baffling, and frustratingly so, is the treatment Lampard receives from England fans. It's to be expected that West Ham fans, in their own little world of bile and steam, still consider it necessary to boo and hiss Lamps 12 years after he moved to Chelsea. But whatever cretinously petty issue exists behind this pantomime animosity, (and it is, sadly, as cretinously petty as the fact that he dared quit the club as it was taking one of its regular exits through the Premier League trap door), Lampard has gone on to be the most consistently effective midfield player in world football for more than a decade.

Yes, some of his England performances - with or without the Gerrard combination conundrum - have been disappointing, but his 94 caps have been totally justified. His goal against Brazil on Wednesday was his 27th in national colours, itself an achievement of prolific endeavour. And he has more to offer: "I understand where I am in my career," he said after the Brazil game, "but if I can continue playing for Chelsea then I am getting nearer to 100 [England caps]. It's certainly a target for me and, yes, I will try to keep playing at a good enough level to get there."

Which raises questions about where he plays next. David Beckham has demonstrated that a move to LA Galaxy, and a move to the US MLS, is the equivalent of dropping a couple of divisions in terms of quality, although it would probably be the equivalent of going up two in terms of wages.

The difference between Beckham and Lampard, however, is that Beckham has been able to build the 'brand' to maintain his profile. How else would a 37-year-old whose best years are long behind him manage to sign for Paris Saint-Germain in a blaze of publicity that managed to eclipse PSG's signing of Zlatan Ibrahimović not so long ago?

Frank Lampard has built a profile to fit Frank Lampard. He's an eloquent, intelligent footballer. Never the nightclub jockey, and now with a celebrity girlfriend who appears to have successfully mastered the art of being a glamourous WAG and girl-next-door TV sweetheart at the same time.  

Privately educated, thanks to father Frank Sr.'s desire for Frank Jr. to have a good foundation, this has been matched by Lampard's dedication to the game. While still a West Ham apprentice, Lampard was known to take extra training sessions, largely because of the discipline drummed into him by his father, and largely because he felt that with Frank Sr.'s brother-in-law Harry Redknapp in charge of the club, he had more to prove that he wasn't there through nepotism.

Even today, Lampard Jr. continues to put the hours in on the training pitch. It's an effort that kept him off the treatment table for successive seasons, a record that has only really started to unravel in recent years as age has inevitably started to catch up. And it is why I've never understood the 'Fat Frank' barbs: for a football crowd whose diet consists mostly of pies to call Lampard "Fat" is like Kim Kardashian raising questions about Paris Hilton's career aspirations.

Lampard insisted that he retains the fitness and drive to play at the highest level for another two or three years, suggesting he is not yet ready to accept a lucrative quiet life in America or the Far East. Publically, he has repeatedly stated his desire to end his career at Stamford Bridge. Privately, he may have accepted that if he can't have the deal he wants at Chelsea, he'll get the deal he wants at another club. And there certainly won't be a shortage of offers, be it LA Galaxy, PSG, China or - swallows something hard and jagged - even Manchester United.

"I’m not the kind of player to see out my time and sit with my bum on the bench too much," Lampard has said recently. "I want to be involved. That’s my character. I will keep trying to do that, whatever the circumstances."

Which comes back to the Chelsea question. I get the point that with rules on club finances coming in, you've got to tighten the belt accordingly. And a £160k a week for a player in his mid-30s is a lot of money. But then so is spending £50m on Fernando Torres, and how's that working out?

If Ryan Giggs at 39 is young enough for Manchester United, a relative whippersnapper like Lampard should - and obviously does - have a lot to still give Chelsea. Current form and history combined, it really would be madness to let him go. But, then, when has sanity played any part in the revolving door of managers at Chelsea under Roman Abramovich, let alone players coming and going?

In praise of The Quiet Man

“Do not underestimate the determination of the quiet man,” is the oft-quoted protestation of former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith who, during his time running the blue faction of British politics, rarely demonstrated any form of impactful oratorial qualities, and was ritually "shushed" ironically by Opposition MPs whenever he stood at the dispatch box.

With an acronymic name like IDS he didn't stand a chance. It sounds too much like "IBS" to survive in an environment of formerly playground-bullied bed-wetters like the House of Commons. Not that Ed Balls exactly comes off any better in the realm of tauntably-named politicians.

Anyway, I have no interest at all in former Tory leaders but, instead, today, I concern myself with the fortunes of Roy Hodgson, the softly-spoken Croydon lad who took the silent route to seniority in his football management career by pursuing that unlikely of English sporting paths - moving abroad. And he has now been unveiled as the next England manager.

When Woy, sorry, Roy, pitched up at the newly-minted Blackburn Wo...er...Rovers in 1997 he had already managed four Swedish clubs - Halmstad, Oddevold, Örebro and Malmö - along with Swiss outfit Neuchâtel and the Swiss national side itself. Not to mention a little club in Italy by the name of Internazionale.

Only Kate Moss has since eclipsed Hodgson in making good of a Croydon upbringing on the global stage. Actually, Hodgson may have reclaimed that crown by the time he accepted Mohammed Al Fayed's pieces of silver in 2007 to manage Fulham, having added a second spell at Inter, the Zurich club Grasshopper, FC Copenhagen, Udinese, the United Arab Emirates,Viking in Norway and the Finnish national team to his CV. And since then a sorry spell at a politically fractious Liverpool and, until the end of this season, a solid but unspectacular stint at the Hawthorns running West Bromwich Albion.

On paper, this collective expertise makes him an obvious choice for the vacant England manager's position. So why is it that, until Sunday evening when the FA took the unprecedented step of pre-announcing Hodgson as the only candidate to be interviewed for the job, the nation had collectively installed Harry Redknapp in the role - almost as soon as Fabio Capello flounced out of the Wembley in a huff over John Terry's sacking?

Indeed, it wouldn't be unfair to say that news on Sunday evening of Hodgson being invited in to meet the FA's four-man selection panel - David Bernstein, Alex Horne, Sir Trevor Brooking and Adrian Bevington - came as a surprise to Hodgson himself.

Hodgson is in stark contrast to "Flash" Harry, whose wheeler-dealer history and bright orange wife has made him as much a character form Minder as one of the most prolific club managers in England. And yet, we all thought the England job was his.

Even his February residency at Southwark Crown Court on tax evasion charges didn't swerve our opinion that he was a shoe-in at the end of the season to take over England and take them into Euro 2012 in Ukraine and Poland. In fact it may even have, in our twisted football-supporter logic, galvanised our view that he'd be ideal. This is the same twisted logic that regarded the Krays as folk heroes, not that I'm lumping Redknapp in the same company, but you know what I mean - we love a lovable rogue.

By all accounts, it didn't necessarily swerve the FA, either. So why did they, all of a sudden, go exclusively for a manager who'd hitherto been mentioned as a "possible" also-ran in the betting, along with Newcastle's Alan Pardew, Glen Hoddle (again), Jose Mourinho (no chance) and current caretaker Stuart Pearce?

Redknapp's fiscal challenges and residual reputational issues may have warded off the Football Association. If there is one thing we know about the FA, they are as adept at avoiding scandal as a Parisian is at dodging street-strewn dog poo. Just ask Glenn Hoddle and his, erm, beliefs.

Then there is talk that Redknapp had a very different view to the FA's longer-term vision. What, then, makes Hodgson more appropriate? He has held 19 managerial positions - some barely a single season long - and not in that time picked up any silverware. Granted, he took the Swiss national side to Number 3 in the world rankings, and he has demonstrated an ability to man-manage average-looking sides to mid-table mediocrity. That's no criticism. The facts speak for themselves.

Hodgson may be no more than a middle-management civil servant being given his chance - at 64 - to step up to run the one department not on his CV. His journeyman resumé suggests average managerial talent, and his reputation for a somewhat old-fashioned - some might even say stale - style of training does not necessarily indicate a new broom about to breathe new life into England's jaded, over-pampered, overpaid superstars, whose hubris has been repeatedly lanced by excess expectation turning to disappointment.

However: "He is probably the best man-manager I worked with," former Swedish international Stefan Schwarz told the Daily Telegraph. "He had the knack of knowing when to give a player a kick up the backside and when to build them up." To that, Schwarz cites Hodgson's skills in dealing with problems  and, countering rumblings from one or two of Liverpool's malcontnents, a professional approach on the training pitch. Swiss international Ramon Vega echoed this sentiment, who claims Hodgson has a good tactical approach. We shall see.

Hodgson will have to win over the current crop of England stars. Today's Sun helpfully noted that, with Twitter the unofficial channel of record for just about every professional footballer these days, there was absolutely no reaction at all when news emerged from Wembley on Sunday that Hodgson was to be interviewed. In contrast, when Capello quit, England players couldn't wait to install Redknapp (“Harry Redknapp would be my choice by a distance,” tweeted Rio Ferdinand while Wayne Rooney posted: “Gutted Capello has quit. Got to be English to replace him. Harry Redknapp for me.”).

Perhaps Hodgson is ideal for England. For too long we have regarded ourselves as world champions-in waiting, whereas in reality anyone else around the world sees England as anything but. We may well have invented the modern game, but in the almost 46 years since we last won a trophy, our footballing prowess has been determined more by the wheelbarrows of cash being lugged around the Premier League rather than any on-pitch ability with which we could be truly compared to the likes of Spain, Brazil, the Dutch, Italy or even the United States.

Bringing in an experienced but unspectacular manager like Hogdson, with his subtle urbanity and suburban newsagent's demeanour, may be the best decision the FA could make. We're not going to win anything anytime soon, so we might as well bring in a manager who'll ensure we won't lose too badly either.

This is the key to judging England. I was recently admonished by a Dutchman of some considerable wisdom who said: "You English think too highly of yourselves, and that's why you'll never win anything. You go into every tournament thinking you are supposed to win it, when in reality there are better sides, like Spain. They win without expectation, England lose because of it." Well, true. What was it that gave us the right to believe we were the best in the world? 1966? The Premier League?

The England job, we all know, is football's most tainted poisoned chalice. Your time in the job is spent like James Bond in Live And Let Die, stepping stone-leaping across the open mouths of snapping media alligators. No one is safe, no one is immune. Even Stuart Pearce has suffered all the usual slings and arrows and he's only been in temporary charge. Will Hodgson be able to handle this any better? Redknapp certainly would have done. During his lengthy tenure of West Ham and time in charge of Portsmouth, Southampton and Spurs he has been able to deftly balance egos and modest budgets, giving him at least one vital skill for managing England.

However, since Redknapp was first pre-installed as England boss by the unofficial selection committee on Twitter the wheels have started to loosen at Tottenham. The suggestion is that the England job turned Redknapp's head and, in the process his focus. Today, even with Spurs still, in theory, in with a shout of Champions League football next season, you could hardly say that the north London club is poised to challenge the Manchesters for the top spot any time soon.

And given that Redknapp's trophy cabinet isn't any more full than Hodgson, is he really - today at least - any better a candidate for the job than Hodgson? Harry Redknapp might be a more colourful character, but this may be the time for the Quiet Man to step in and take over an impossible job.

Stop press: Owls that look like Roy Hodgson - here!

Management expectation

There has been an awkward vibe around football this week: with André Villas-Boas clinging by the last layer of fingertip flesh to his job at Chelsea, his compatriot and mentor Jose Mourinho reappears in London to meet an estate agent.

Given Mourinho's penchant for the theatrical, The Sun’s blurry snap of his meeting all but lacked the Portuguese conspiratorially twirling his moustache like a silent movie villain, a tinkling piano signaling impending doom for some young damsel tied to a railway track. Which is how Villas-Boas must feel right now.

In another part of the capital, however, a 49-year-old Sex Pistols fan who goes by the name of 'Psycho' was preparing to lead out the England team in a somewhat pointless friendly against the Netherlands. You could be forgiven for thinking that the Stuart Pearce had won the one-off chance to manage England in a competition on Blue Peter, such is the unlikelihood of him being anything more than a temporary appointment while the Football Association works out how to get Harry Redknapp out of Spurs.

For all Pearce’s status as a minor national treasure for his unbridled patriotism – his sinew-stretching pre-match singing of the national anthem and that fist-pumping, post-penalty elation that he shared with the entire country after the England-Spain shootout during Euro’96 – few England fans would say he has the credentials to take England into and beyond the 2012 European championships. It is something that Pearce humbly and characteristically suggested before last night’s game, that he “didn’t have the CV” to become the permanent England manager, a point he then repeated after the 2-3 home defeat to the Dutch. "The full-time manager of England at this moment in time is probably somebody else, not me," he reflected.

While it would be tempting to feel a little sorry for Pearce, having been given the chance to manage the senior team for one game, but his brief spells in club management were less than stellar (although compared with Villas-Boas, Pearce is positively weighed down with experience). His ongoing management of the England Under-21 squad, while positive, hasn’t given the impression that, charged with the next generation of England player, he would be lifting silverware any time soon.

In the end, the sobriquet ‘caretaker’ was more than appropriately applied to Pearce. Although he effectively suited up for the night, adopting the Italian/Spanish style of dark suit, dark tie, tan shoes, tan belt, the end result for England was less than spectacular. It wasn’t bad. Just not good. As caretaker, Pearce stood on the touchline, waving his arms in the manner managers are meant to wave their arms, even though it rarely does anything to make the team perform any differently. Meanwhile, we watched on trying to work out what the plan was. There didn’t seem to be one, although if it was “contain Robben”, it had clearly been forgotten.

I don’t wish to knock Pearce, and he certainly won’t brook any sympathy. If he wants the England job full-time, dressing smartly for the press isn’t really the most important requirement. The trouble is, no one really knows what is required to be the new England manager. If it is managing the egos of a group of ageing stars, then Capello was your man, until his fit of pique over John Terry saw him flounce off.

If it is about bringing through a new generation of players, motivating them and making them want to play for themselves as a team, not for their own individual reputations, then there would be no one better than Redknapp. True, Redknapp’s trophy record at club level hasn’t exactly been remarkable either, but most fans would agree that he’s the best option left untried in the never-ending search for an end to English expectation.

When Three Lions replaced God Save The Queen (the original version) as the temporary national anthem in 1996, “30 years of hurt” seemed a long time then for England to go without a tournament trophy. “46 years of hurt” in 2012 not only doesn’t scan (so please, anyone considering re-recording that song before this summer bear that in mind…), it is also a perilous reminder of the length of time with which the country which founded association football has been potless.

We all know that, however. No need to remind us. No need to drag up the fact that every four years we talk of another ‘golden generation’ who flatter to deceive and fail to deliver. No need to recall how often we’ve heard the phrase “If this team can’t win the tournament, then none of them can”.

The World Cup in 2010 was supposed to be the opportunity for England: a sharp team, playing at the highest level of the Premier League, under one of the most respected managers in football. And yet it ended in durge and another early departure.

Perhaps our expectations are too high? Perhaps 1966 was the fluke Germans still claim it was? Perhaps England – despite being the home of arguably the most tactically exciting domestic league in world football – just can’t cut it as a national side. Perhaps England is the mirror reverse of the Netherlands, which has some of the most dire domestic football and yet consistently puts out incredible national teams, albeit frequently self-destructive teams.

But back to the job of England manager, because no matter what, he will bear the heaviest weight of expectation of all. Which is funny, because the parallel between that position, and the manager’s job at Chelsea is starkly similar. Both are the most poisoned of chalices; both have, over the last few years, been the subject of experiments (be it the shot in the dark that is Villas-Boas and was Steve McClaren; the boutique appointments that were Sven Goran-Ericsson and Fabio Capello; or the “inspired” appointments of Mourinho, Ancelotti or Scolari which ended in acrimony); and both seem to be appointed without any clear plan, just a ‘let’s see if this works’.

The FA is, according to Sir Trevor Brooking, in no immediate hurry to appoint a permanent successor to Capello, even though we're now just over three months away from the kick off of Euro 2012. Perhaps it will be Harry Redknapp or perhaps it will be a complete surprise. Perhaps the FA will do what the BBC did when Angus Deayton was sacked as host of Have I Got News For You, and there's a guest manager for each game England plays. Surely you'd eventually find someone who could win something...