As media firing squad clammer to pull trigger - who should replace McClaren?

With no game for United this weekend, our collective attentions will focus on the international scene once more.

England need Israel to draw or win against Russia on Saturday night and then McClaren's team have to beat Croatia next week if the Three Lions are to avoid missing out on a place at the Euro 2008 finals next summer.

In the build-up to these crucial games there has been a lot of discussions about overseas stars plying their trade in the Premier League and the likes of Steven Gerrard has joined Fergie in support of Sepp Blatter's quota proposal.

The FIFA big cheese wants to see more home-grown stars from the country of origin playing in domestic competitions like the Premier League. The idea hasn't gone down well with most of the media, so why exactly is that? How can it be that the manager who has won more domestic honours than any other in the British game can see the sense in Blatter's proposals, yet the media cannot?

One of the great ironies is that here we have a Scotsman agreeing in principle with Blatter for the long term good of the English game. Yet at the same time Arsene Wenger a Frenchman - who clearly has no interest in the England national team - does not agree with Blatter and yet the press who continually bang the international drum agree with Wenger on this issue....

In response to the England captain Steven Gerrard supporting under-fire McClaren and the quota system Matt Dickinson of the Times (surely an Arsenal fan?) devoted a couple of pages yesterday to attacking Blatter's proposal while at the same time plunging the knife in between McClaren's shoulder blades (again). Gerrard, we were told was looking for excuses. Hang on a minute Matt, could it actually be that the Liverpool star agrees with what many including myself see as a common sense proposal?

As if that wasn't enough, Dickinson added his own personal comment piece attacking the lack of skill and wit of the English, both on the pitch and on the touchline, he used matches between English journalists and their European counterparts to make his point. Which was a silly argument, but he made his point about the lack of skill.

The thing is critics like Dickinson will happily point out that England haven't won anything since 1966 and they say that prior to Wenger arriving together with the mass influx of overseas stars things weren't any better. That maybe so, but should England fail to qualify for the Euro 2008 finals - wont that say quite a lot about the current state of affairs?

The point being, we still haven't got it right, and despite the fact that the media darling that is Terry Venables says that he cannot see any reason to sack Steve McClaren, the press firing squad are clammering to pull the trigger.

Sacking the manager is the media's answer to everything, it always has been and it is why papers like the Times fills page after page in a bid to dictate the agenda to Brian Barwick and the FA.

Having loaded the gun, Dickinson realised that even if the FA sacks McClaren, there's no obvious replacement, he made reference to this in his comment piece. That's the thing, it's very easy to say get rid of the coach, less easy to come up with solutions which run far deeper than ousting the manager.

Perhaps the penny has dropped that even if the media get their way, there's no obivous replacement. Mourinho doesn't want the job, nor does Wenger or Fergie. Hiddink looks to be tied to the Oligarchs and Russia. Barwick, aided by the press, made a complete balls-up of trying to entice Scolari.

All in all, it's a mess but no doubting McClaren will get sacked and Blatter will be ignored but then what happens when England do not qualify for the next big tournament, will everything still be ok? No doubting the media will have all the usual anwsers in the form of a loaded rifle.