McClaren shouldn't be the only one to go

It should not just be Steve McClaren that is held accountable for England's failure to reach the finals of Euro 2008.

McClaren was dumped just a day after England's 3-2 loss at home to Croatia ensured it would be absent from football's second biggest tournament after the World Cup for the first time since 1984. And his disastrous reign will be remembered for the sight of him standing under an umbrella while watching his team slog it out in atrocious conditions against Croatia.

How can a man be taken seriously when just moments after asking his team to give blood, sweat and tears in pouring rain and on a waterlogged pitch, he then decides he needs protection from those same elements?

McClaren, who took over after Swede Sven Goran Erikkson was axed after guiding England to its third successive quarter-final appearance at a major tournament at the 2006 World Cup, was in charge for just 18 matches during which time England won just nine games.

But it is those who appointed this man that must also be held responsible as the nation that invented football looks to pick up the pieces after a result which has shattered an entire country.

When McClaren was appointed after the 2006 World Cup, even those English Premier League obsessed tragics across the other side of the world in countries such as Australia knew he was the wrong choice.

Not only had he been Erikkson's No.2 man in a regime deemed to be a failure - but which compared to McClaren's reign was an unqualified success - but he was not even the English Football Association's first choice.

That was highly-rated Portuguese coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, the man who steered Brazil to a World Cup win and Portugal into the final of Euro 2004, but he only rejected the job after realising he did not want to deal with the incredible media attention that comes with arguably the highest profile football coaching position on earth.

There were even better candidates than McClaren within the English game such as then Charlton and now West Ham manager Alan Curbishley and experienced former Bolton and now Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce.

Instead, the FA went for a man whose coaching resume consisted all of a League Cup win with Middlesbrough.

And now these same men - headed by FA chief executive Brian Barwick - are being entrusted to find McClaren's successor.

The same men that gave McClaren a four-year contract with no penalties for failure such as failing to reach the finals of the 2008 European Championships.

It's an untenable situation and McClaren should not be the only man made to pay for the performance of a team whose players earn more in a week than most fans do in a lifetime.

English fans will now also have to come to terms with the fact that its so-called 'golden generation' of players has failed to end a trophy drought stretching back to the 1966 World Cup and whoever does inherit the poisoned chalice that is the England manager's position will have to re-build a squad that has relied on a handful of veterans such as Michael Owen, David Beckham and Steven Gerrard for far too long.

And they will have to do it from a seemingly ever-shrinking talent pool as young English players are simply not good enough to get a game with leading clubs such as Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United as foreign players continue to flood into the EPL.

But the answer is not to introduce some sort of quota reducing the number of foreigners in the EPL because English players should not be getting a game at club level by default.

Instead it's time to look at the development of the game at a junior level and question why England is no longer producing world-class players.

Only then will England have players good enough to break into the leading club sides and thus improve the national team.

And then if the FA can find the right man to take charge of the national team England might return to its former glory days instead of being the joke of European football, which it clearly is right now considering all of the other big guns easily qualified for the continent's showpiece event in Austria and Switzerland next June.