Next England manager: Steve Bruce has a fire in his belly - which is why he would be perfect to replace Roy Hodgson

Neither the appointments of Claudio Ranieri or Fernando Santos excited Leicester City or Portugal fans - but they proved why the glamorous option isn't always the best

Steve Bruce celebrates guiding Hull City back to the Premier League at Wembley (Getty)

In November 2011, Steve Bruce had hit bottom. Sacked by Sunderland to the chorus of a cackling Stadium of Light, Bruce was in contention for the vacant jobs at Norwich City, West Bromwich and Aston Villa but they all went to other men. Like so many passé Englishmen before him, and several after him too, Bruce knew he would have to dip back into the second tier to repair his reputation.

It didn’t matter that he had actually steadied the ship at Sunderland. It didn’t matter that plenty before him on the Wear had suffered from the same chronic dose of second season syndrome. It was the same old story for Bruce. Always the bridesmaid and never the bride, the petty hauteur which had kept him out of work for six months had begun to pose a grave threat to his career on a grander scale.

Unemployed and at a crossroads in his managerial life, Bruce was perched in the commentary box in Munich for the Champions League final in 2012. “I was thinking: ‘Do I want to be sitting beside Alan Green?’” he recalled nearer the time. “The Hull job had been offered to me and while watching Chelsea against Bayern Munich I was thinking: ‘I'm going to give it a crack.’ I'd rather be managing than commentating.”

As the post-mortem on Roy Hodgson’s occasionally encouraging, but often disheartening, four-year tenure as England manager cuts ever deeper, Football Association chiefs are leaning towards hiring an Englishman again in their hunt for his successor. Sven-Göran Eriksson and Fabio Capello were bold, expensive experiments but reaped little reward.

The Independent understands Sam Allardyce, the Sunderland manager, is high on the preliminary list conjured up by the three-man FA panel consisting of chief executive Martin Glenn, technical director Dan Ashworth and vice-chairman David Gill.

Bruce, the man who has stopped Hull from veering wildly off course in uncertain times, deserves at least an interview. Faced with a glass ceiling and enough off-field strife to last a lifetime, Bruce has hauled Hull back to the top table yet again. Just in time for the arrivals of Messrs Guardiola, Conte and Mourinho.

After guiding Hull to promotion, the 55-year-old took a month out to do some some soul searching. In the end he elected to stay at the KCom Stadium this season. His loyalty to Hull and to Dr Assem Allam, gravely ill but recovering, proved too strong. But he makes no secret of his burning ambition to manage England - the ‘holy grail’ as he says.

The petulant howling has already begun. ‘Steve Bruce? Really? Can’t we do better?’ Other than Allardyce, who has discussed the position with the FA this week, Bruce is the only other candidate who ticks all the boxes.

Tactically flexible, fiercely competitive and peerlessly diplomatic, Bruce deserves the chance to step up having started his managerial career at Sheffield United almost 20 years ago.

Across subsequent spells with Huddersfield, Wigan, Crystal Palace, Birmingham, Wigan again, Sunderland and now Hull, Bruce has seldom been afforded the opportunity to prove himself with the resources to make his mark at the very top.

“Call me old fashioned,” he told the Daily Mail this week, “but we're now holding umbrellas up as our players get off a plane. Do they need that? It's a few spots of rain. Okay, they might get wet. Well, let them get wet. That's what happens when it rains.

“We've got to find our humility again because, frankly - we aren’t that great. We haven't got anywhere near winning, yet we've got very good players. So something is missing.”

Steve Bruce is a hero to many Hull City fans (Getty)

Finding that “something” won’t be easy but surely a manager who, in his own words, has worked “a lot of Saturday afternoons” in English football is qualified to start the hunt. No quick fixes, no shortcuts, but a return to old school man management.

Neither the appointments of Claudio Ranieri or Fernando Santos excited Leicester City or Portugal fans. They turned out alright.

Both had left Greece in disgrace, their stocks at an all-time low. Many questioned how they could even talk themselves into getting an interview for those jobs, yet alone emerge from the process with a contract.

Like Ranieri and Santos, Bruce has a fire burning in his belly. There are naysayers to be struck down, tables to be turned. It’s high time he actually got his chance to do so.