English football is an island no more . . . let’s toast that!

THERE was a time when we wanted our top managers to be British. That time has gone. An Englishman in charge of the England team is welcome. In the Premier League it really doesn’t matter. This is no longer the English league. It’s a league that’s played in England and there is a big difference. The players are no longer predominantly English, nor are the TV viewers. That identity has been lost and won’t return. So there is no point having a hang-up about the managers, either. Today, the last of an up-and-down football year, features the first meeting in England of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. It is fitting because on the one day of the year we are tempted to look backwards, the managers of Liverpool and Manchester City are two of those pointing the way forwards. We should celebrate this, too. We are lucky to have them. Both could probably earn more elsewhere. In Spain and, like it or not, in China. But they choose us, with our fantastically out-of-date fixture scheduling, our humptydumpty football and our terrible weather. For many reasons, we should be grateful. Klopp and Guardiola are not reinventing the game but they are committed to playing it in a brave and exciting way and this is one of the reasons why football at the top level in this country comes packaged in optimism right now. Whoever wins this Premier League will do so on the front foot and we should include Antonio Conte’s liberated Chelsea in this category. The champions will, in all likelihood, come from one of these three clubs. Young British managers complain that the route to the Premier League is blocked by the recruitment of foreigners. That is right to an extent. But it is not clubs such as City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United and Tottenham who are to blame. Should Swansea have overlooked domestic candidates before hiring Bob Bradley? Probably not. Have some perplexing appointments been made at big Championship clubs including Wolves, Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa? Absolutely. Decisions like these will cause a bottleneck when it comes to domestic managers striving for upward mobility but the recruitment of Klopp and Guardiola at the top end should only be aspirational to those further down. Burnley’s Sean Dyche is one of our best English coaches. His team is one of only two to beat Liverpool this season and he will surely be interviewed by the FA one day. But his tendency to suggest coaches like Guardiola are afforded over-hyped adulation doesn’t reflect well on him, regardless of whether he has tongue in cheek. ‘Talk about tactics all you want but what have they really done?’ he said in an interview in November. ‘They’ve come in and said, “We’re going to run harder”.’ If Dyche feels under-appreciated in our game, then he shouldn’t. He, like Eddie Howe at Bournemouth, is a gem and is valued. But if the Burnley manager really thinks Guardiola and Klopp have only brought intensity and high running stats to English football, he is wrong. Many years ago at Bolton, Sam Allardyce used to strike a similar tone and that didn’t sit well, either. English football and the way it is being played are changing at the top end. It is not flawless and it may yet need modification but it is changing and for that we have continental visions to thank. Sport, like life, must move forward. On the last day of a bewildering 2016, we will hopefully see the future unfolding at Anfield tonight.