England's future: Englishmen who can manage

Three points in Minsk tonight and England would appear to be on a jet-propelled course to the World Cup finals in South Africa in two years' time. A moment for some mild self-congratulation among the players and their entourage, perhaps, and one for some private regret among a small band of aspiring English managers within these shores.

While Fabio Capello's achievements with a previously moribund group of players have reawakened some belief that there really is life left in English football's so-called golden generation, it has hardly enhanced the prospects of an English manager leading out the side some day soon. Hiring a home-grown successor to Steve McClaren was just too much of a risk last winter for the Football Association chief executive, Brian Barwick, and considering the fates which have since befallen the two on his list – Sam Allardyce and Alan Curbishley at Newcastle and West Ham respectively – it is beginning to look like he had a point.

All might not be lost, though, for those who yearn for the days when the England job brought such a host of English contenders that the FA was able to overlook Brian Clough, Howard Kendall, Bob Paisley and Bill Nicholson – all winners of both European trophies and league titles. The League Managers' Association (LMA) has just opened discussions with the FA in the hope of securing financial and logistical support for a project to identify and develop prospective English managers and, in the words of its chief executive, Richard Bevan, ensure that "the next time the England job comes up at least 12 British blokes are seen as being qualified for it".

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The size of the task should not be underestimated. Only three Englishmen have managed in the main stages of the Champions League. One is deceased (Ray Harford), one is retired (Howard Wilkinson) and the other is 75 years of age (Sir Bobby Robson). The number of British managers in the Premier League has gradually been whittled down from 21 at its inception 15 years ago to 13 now and the foreigners generally get the top jobs and international credentials that go with them. The only man who currently looks a contender to be Capello's successor is Stuart Pearce, the former England left-back whom Soho Square has encouraged the Italian to take into his management team.

That is why, 10 months after succeeding John Barnwell at the LMA, Bevan wants to develop more prospects. He is looking to move the British management game away from an arbitrary system in which a self-selecting group of players drifts into the trade, many to sink quickly without trace. Figures provided by the Warwick Business School show that 50 per cent of first-time managers never get a second job and enjoy an average tenure of 16 months. Little wonder the prospect of a running a quiet pub in the country still holds greater appeal for many.

Bevan wants to recruit an advisory board of six people who will identify players, three to five years away from retirement, who look like serious management prospects and, drawing on systems commoner in France, the Netherlands and Italy, fast-track them into the profession. Exposing these prospective managers to other sports is a major part of the LMA's plans. Roy Keane discovered the benefits of this when he spent a week with the All Blacks this summer and addressed them before Ireland's Test in Auckland – "I was intrigued by how they work, and I have to say I wasn't disappointed," the Sunderland manager revealed afterwards – and the LMA has already established contact with the Wallabies, the Aussie Rules side North Melbourne Kangaroos and basketball's NFL Players' Association.

Of course, identifying the players who might benefit most from this system is difficult. Bryan Robson would doubtlessly have been on the LMA's radar, were he now reaching the end of his playing days. Sir Bobby Charlton would fit the same category. Conversely, who would have guessed that George Graham, nicknamed "Stroller" as a player with Arsenal, would have emerged into a successful manager with a disciplinarian streak? Sir Alex Ferguson and Paul Ince both say that the introspective Mark Hughes was the last person in the early Nineties Manchester United side they thought would have gone into management. There is simply no way of picking the winners.

But the LMA's project also entails a support system to reduce the rate of attrition among those who struggle and pick up those who have been dumped by the wayside. "We want to create a clear pathway to ensure that, from start to finish, managers can see a career path," Bevan said. "It's actually the guys at the bottom we want to help more than those at the top."

Only 10 of the Premier and Football League's managers of 1992 remain in the game now and the LMA wants to tap into those who have left, getting back to a time-honoured practice which – with the exceptions of Ferguson's former players phoning him at his Old Trafford office – has gradually been lost in the British game: of managers being able to call on the experience of those who have gone down the same road. "Some of the [flow of] knowledge has been lost and some of it has not been coordinated," Bevan said. "We want to create a team of people that a manager can't get access to with the club he is working at." The LMA is also seeking to build on some of the expertise managers have picked up on the Warwick Business School's excellent certificate in applied management in football course, set up in conjunction with Barnwell six years ago. How to deal with the media and the chairman when your season is heading for mini-crisis will certainly be covered. "One of the most difficult parts for managers is managing the expectations of fans or the board of directors," Bevan said.

It remains unclear how willing the FA, PFA and others will be to invest in an LMA programme which could cost anything between £100,000 and £2m a year to run but which would presumably save clubs immeasurably more in reduced severance payments. The FA's head of coaching, John Peacock, said that his organisation also wanted to do more to spot managerial talent, through identifying the high-flyers on its A Licence course. "We're thinking about what we can do for that small percentage of coaches and what support we can offer them as they move forward," Peacock said.

Professor Sue Bridgewater, who runs the applied football management course at Warwick, believes that the prior taste of the international scene which Pearce is being granted is also a vital part of the process of developing successors to Capello. "That's because in any field of business or management you need to look at somebody who has had the relevant experience," said Bridgewater who, having worked with Hughes and Dean Saunders from the Wales set-up, and Chris Hughton (Republic of Ireland assistant manager from 2003-5) is of the view that the international role often suits the more reflective manager.

So who are the individuals who may stake their claim when Capello has finally collected the World Cup winner's medal and sauntered off into the sunset? Pearce might not seem the most "reflective" character but he will undoubtedly be one of the prime candidates, having proved his worth as a coach in steering the England Under-21s to within touching distance of the final of Euro 2007.

The potential offered by Alan Shearer is also, perhaps inevitably, the talk of the coaching circuit. He is an individual who does possess those reflective qualities Bridgewater speaks of but also the combative spirit which scared a young Steven Gerrard half to death before his England debut in a friendly against Ukraine in 2000. "I was so hyped up I couldn't tie my laces," Gerrard later recalled, in an account which makes you think Shearer would get something out of him, if Capello cannot. Gary Neville, who has just completed his A Licence is also "somebody that everybody talks about," according to Bridgewater and has demonstrated in his playing career with the national side that he is a leader. And though Gareth Southgate's appointment to the Middlesbrough job before he had attained his mandatory Pro Licence was a source of controversy, Gareth Southgate is also understood to have impressed hugely in his coaching education, which will be complete next June.

By the next decade there will be new names to conjure with, too, though no amount of grooming can prepare them for the FA's collective state of mind when the England job comes up. Its rush to appoint does not help, either: Barwick hired Capello within nine weeks of McClaren's exit and even that was said to be a sluggish performance. Barwick also said that he had sought "technical advice" before making the appointment. In keeping with the ethos of its proposals, the LMA can envisage a panel of technical experts making the decision when the time comes, rather than one man. It remains unclear whether the FA would accept that. There are never many certainties in life where England are concerned.

Home front: How English is club football in England?

Premier League: Eight of 20 English

Paul Ince (Blackburn) Age: 40, England career: 53 caps/2 goals.

Coaching honours: 2008 League Two championship, 2008 Johnstone's Paint Trophy. Avoided relegation with Macclesfield after being bottom of League Two when appointed in 2006. Won two trophies in one season at MK Dons before Premier League appointment.

Gary Megson (Bolton) Age: 52, England: Uncapped.

Achieved promotion to the Premier League with West Bromwich Albion as Championship runners-up in 2002 and 2004. Took over Bolton last season and led them to 16th-place finish in the Premier League.

Roy Hodgson (Fulham) Age: 61, England: Uncapped.

Managed 13 clubs in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Italy and England, and three international teams. Lost 1997 Uefa Cup final with Internazionale.

Phil Brown (Hull City) Age: 49, England: Uncapped.

Honours: 2008 Championship play-offs. Spent six years as Sam Allardyce's assistant at Bolton. Flopped at Derby but saved Hull from relegation in 2007, before winning promotion in 2008. After seven games they lie three points off the top of the Premier League.

Gareth Southgate (Middlesbrough) Age: 38, England: 57 caps/2 goals.

Handed first managerial role in 2006 despite not having required qualifications. Finish 12th in the Premier League in his first season. Impressed on coaching courses.

Harry Redknapp (Portsmouth) Age: 61, England: Uncapped.

Honours: 2008 FA Cup, 2003 Championship, 2000 Intertoto Cup, 1987 Third Division title. After early success with Bournemouth, Redknapp guided West Ham to fifth place, their best Premier League finish, in 1999. Biggest triumph was transforming Portsmouth from a struggling second-tier team into a top 10 Premier League side, culminating in winning the FA Cup in May.

Tony Mowbray (West Bromwich Albion) Age: 44, England: 3 "B" caps.

Took Hibernian to two top-four finishes in the Scottish Premier League. Lost Championship play-off final in his first season at West Bromwich, before winning the division and reaching the FA Cup semi-final last season.

Steve Bruce (Wigan Athletic) Age: 47, England: 1 "B" cap

Took Birmingham City into the Premier League in his first season in charge in 2002. Consolidated their place in the top-flight before relegation in 2006, but brought them back up at first attempt, then left for Wigan.

Championship: 11 of 24 English

Simon Grayson (Blackpool); Gary Johnson (Bristol City); Dave Jones (Cardiff City); Alan Pardew (Charlton); Neil Warnock (Crystal Palace); Paul Jewell (Derby); Glenn Roeder (Norwich); Steve Coppell (Reading); Kevin Blackwell (Sheffield United); Brian Laws (Sheffield Wed); Adie Boothroyd (Watford).

League One: 13 of 24 English

Micky Adams (Brighton); John Ward (Carlisle); Martin Allen (Cheltenham); Steve Holland (Crewe); Graham Turner (Hereford); Stan Ternant (Huddersfield); Nigel Pearson (Leicester); Martin Ling (Leyton Orient); Stuart Gray (Northampton); Steve Tilson (Southend); Ronnie Moore (Tranmere); Jimmy Mullen (Walsall); Russell Slade (Yeovil).

League Two: 17 of 24 English

John Coleman (Accrington); Paul Fairclough (Barnet); Andy Scott (Brentford); Lee Richardson (Chesterfield); John Still (Dagenham); Dave Penney (Darlington); Paul Tisdale (Exeter City); Mark Stimson (Gillingham); Mike Newell (Grimsby); Peter Jackson (Lincoln); Mick Harford (Luton); Keith Alexander (Macclesfield); Dean Glover (Port Vale), Keith Hill (Rochdale); Mark Robins (Rotherham); Paul Simpson (Shrewsbury); Peter Taylor (Wycombe).