Liverpool to Lille, “I raised an eyebrow,” Joe coolly explained. As well he might. Bench-warmer to playmaker, and that’s playmaker at the French Champions, playmaker in the Champions League. It’s a good move, Joe. I’d lower those eyebrows.

But how can he be sure it’s not going to be a case of out of sight, out of mind? Is this really the best way to get back into the thinking of Mr Capello? (I’m assuming Mr Capello will be too lazy to take the hour and a half train from Kings Cross to Lille; he still hasn’t quite mastered the English language, so…) All I’m really saying is, he could have gone to Tottenham, QPR, even Villa – might that not have been, I don’t know a bit…safer?

It was probably the fact that these three wouldn’t meet the alleged £90,000 per week wage demands made by Cole and his entourage, that saw the crafty cockney (can i use that, or has Eric Bristow copyrighted it?) hot footing it to his local Euro Star. But what must be considered as well, in the (admittedly mandatory sycophantic) unveiling press conference Cole spoke of having always wanted to play abroad. He also stressed his admiration for the French Champions style of football; they’re like Barcelona apparently.

So maybe I should suspend my cynicism and applaud the move as a brave and innovative way of coming in from the international cold. So good luck to him. And if all goes well maybe we’ll see other international rejects taking a similar approach to resurrecting their England careers. Heskey to Marseille? Wayne Bridge to Olympiakos? Joey Barton…I don’t know…somewhere in Turkey?

After this week’s news that clubs may be forced to interview black candidates for vacant managerial positions, 30 yard sniper looks at racism in football management.

Kicking racism out of football management is something I feel strongly about, but the ‘I’ is not the ‘I’ that supports and admires the message of the ‘Kick It Out’ campaign, but rather the shamelessly selfish one that wants my team to win, to be managed by the best available.

Charlton Athletic Football Club should stand as something of an example; they are, after all, one of only two English League Clubs to currently employ a black manager. The point of this is not to aggrandise my club for being on the right side of a shameful fact, but to show the decision to appoint Powell for what it was: a good football decision by an astute board.

Following on from the colossal dynasty left behind by Alan Curbishley, the decision makers at Charlton were left with a hard job. Who ever they appointed would inherit a poisoned chalice that would be passed around a string of unfortunate bosses.

Firstly, in May 2006, Iain Dowie was appointed. A hard working, respected ex-pro, renowned as something of a thinker for a footballer (he has a degree in rocket science, or something along those lines), and who at the time was still broadly thought of as a promising young manager. All of these things are all well and good. But as a former player and manager of local rivals Crystal Palace, he had no affinity to our club, he had no real proven track record in Premier League management, or keeping teams up whilst there. I don’t think it came as much of a surprise to the majority of Charlton fans when he was sacked twelve league games later with only two wins to his name.

Anyway this isn’t the time to list and evaluate everything that came between Curbishley and Powell (I’d quite happily do it, but…) Lets say managers came and then they went. Some had management pedigree (Pardew), some understood what the club was about (Parkinson and Kinsella) but none had that particular magic formula that makes a certain manager work at a certain club.

After the defeat on penalties to Swindon in the semi-finals of the play-offs (this was a very dark time, as you can imagine adjusting to the thought of playing a third season in the third tier of English football must have been), new owners were required, a new direction; something new and fresh was needed.

This is what Slater, Varney and Murray (Chairman, Executive Vice Chairman and Director respectively) did, what was so important for my football club. They thought about exactly what was needed, and didn’t just cast their line in to an overstocked pond to pull out whatever they hooked, ready to chuck it back the moment it began to flap uncomfortably about (you’ll notice I have a penchant for overextending fishing metaphors, wonder where I get that from…)

The result of this careful deliberation was Powell. At the time Slater said,

   ‘As soon as we met Chris, it was clear he was the stand out candidate.’

And that the point isn’t it – they gave him the chance to impress in an interview, he did, they followed through and gave him the job, and now they’re supporting him and his vision for the club. They facilitated a summer spree that saw 16 new arrivals at The Valley (importantly, Chris Powell signings). The results have been immediate.

Now, of course I am aware that football makes us all look an ass from time to time. So if the results take a downturn seeing Powell sacked by Christmas, then what?

Hopefully it will be seen for football reasons, Charlton can move on, and so can Chris Powell (having proved himself an articulate, insightful and charismatic boss – which he is by the way). It is an area of concern, though, seeing as black managers do seem short on the second and third chances most need to find their feet in such a tough profession (Ince, Barnes). The football management industry is overcrowded and massively competitive (even the Paulo Di Canio’s of this world having to start at Swindon).

All football clubs take advantaqe of the abundance and diversity of the playing talent on offer. So when it comes to choosing a manager, clubs should cast their nets high and wide (again, with the fishing, sorry). Don’t look to the same faces, which allows select few managers play swapsies with our clubs as they inch their way up the greasy pole. Such narrow thinking may not be borne of prejudice, but it is certainly as stupid.

When you want to hire a new manager, get everyone in to explain what they want for your club, what they can do for your club. Because if you are a Chairman and you’ve got someone in front of you enthusiastically explaining their vision, if this vision match your own hopes and dreams, then whatever colour they are won’t matter. If clubs are forced to interview black managers in order for this to happen, then that can only be a good thing.

When people talk of coincidences, they tend to be of the happy variety; or at least, if the opposite is true, they’re described with a wry smile. “You’ve planned a late-night shopping trip to Bluewater? I’m having two fillings that day as well. What a coincidence.”

But there are no smiles to be had about the unfortunate coincidental theme surrounding the football world this week. Monday’s stories surrounding a rather distasteful and upsetting email, allegedly accidentally sent by Garry Cook to Nedem Onuoha’s mother disparaging her battle with cancer, were followed by the death of football fan Mike Dye outside Wembley prior to the England vs Wales game on Tuesday.

Cook has immediately scrambled to a defensive position, saying his email account was hacked and he was on holiday in South Africa at the time. And those internets haven’t reached that part of the world yet as well, he didn’t say. It’s not an implausible argument, though; I daresay most office workers have had a prank email or two sent in their name before, though I doubt it would have had such a negative and directly personal impact on their lives, or the lives of its recipients.

Meanwhile, several arrests have been made regarding the death of Cardiff City and Wales fan Dye. The possibility of an inter-club rivalry being behind the attack were played down in the initial reports, but it’s a sad fact that this man’s death was caused by people whose side he was supposed to be on.

So on the one hand, we have a Chief Executive of a football club on a multi-million pound salary allegedly making light of a life threatening illness to the sufferer, and a Welsh fan who lost his life at the hands of other Welsh fans outside Wembley on the other. And so you are left wondering once again, how many times does football have to learn its lessons?

I’m finding it difficult to articulate my feelings towards Gary Cook. Football has a rather chequered recent history with men of his ilk; men from corporate backgrounds who serve the bank balance above all else. But really, I don’t need to say anything; I can let him do it for me, here talking about former Man City owner and all round top bloke Thaksin Shinawatra:

“Is he a nice guy? Yes. Is he a great guy to play golf with? Yes. Does he have plenty of money to run a football club? Yes. I really care only about those three things. Whether he is guilty of something over in Thailand, I can’t worry … I worked for Nike who were accused of child-labour issues and I managed to have a career there for 15 years. I believed we were innocent of most of the issues. Morally, I felt comfortable in that environment.”

Mike Dye’s death, apparently at the hands of a hooligan element of the support, shows we are still trying to deal with the legacy of football hooliganism which traces its roots back to the 70’s and 80’s. Whether an incident like this is sporadic or isolated or not is a moot point. No football match and no football team is worth dying for. Things may be better on the whole for the majority of football fans these days, but that will be of little consolation to the family of the 44 year old man who died on Tuesday night.

The much maligned former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson did not have the best of luck during his reign as the national manager. Despite achieving a hitherto unknown level of consistent success at major tournaments, his teams would lose three times at the quarter final stage whilst there, twice on penalties to a borderline-nemesis Portugal side and once to a far superior Brazil team.

He was more cursed, however, by the tabloid’s christening of a select few mainstays of his team as the Golden Generation; a group of players including (but not limited to) Frank Lampard, Steven Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney. On paper, (or even a liquid crystal display), formidable names. Players who, seen by the media to be turning in top-class performances week after week in the Premier League, should transfer their domestic prowess into becoming an all conquering international force.

Now very much in their twilight years, this Golden Generation have all but had their last chance to justify their reputation, to show the world that they really were that good. And for all the hype, for all the column inches filled lambasting Eriksson (and more recently Capello), clamouring for his crucifixion as he strangled this astronomically talented bunch of English players, we can look back at the last decade and say, “Were they ever really that good?”

The ultimate vindication for Eriksson was provided rather tidily by his former no. 2, Steve McClaren. Hailed in some quarters as the saviour after a 4-0 friendly win over Greece (one recalls Gary Lineker’s sickeningly jingoistic performance as anchor of that night’s TV coverage), he was unable to steer the almost exact same set of players through a relatively easy qualifying group for Euro 2008. Which leads back to that same question: “Were they ever really that good?”

The answer is no. Eriksson was able to over-achieve with this team, McClaren spectacularly under-achieved. Despite what the catastrophically inaccurate FIFA rankings may tell you, England are not the 4th best team in the world. England are a quarter final team at best; McClaren showed what they are capable of at their worst.

It’s often flouted that the influx of foreign players since football began 20 years ago has had a detrimental effect on player development and the performances of the national team. Given how many major trophies England won in the 60 years previously, I would say that’s a very questionable opinion. No, foreign players are not the problem. English players are the problem. The Golden Generation are the problem.

If one considers a young English player, they will have a certain amount of natural ability, irrespective of any experience gained playing competitive football. I would posit that matters not whether there’s a foreign player ahead of him in the first team or not, because a) the ingrained technical deficiencies of 98% of English players mean they would not help improve England’s chances at major tournaments; and b) if they were good enough, if they had the natural ability within them, they would get their chance. If they don’t feel they’re getting a chance, they should get the hell out on loan to a Championship side and show the manager what they are capable of.

The Premier League both blessed and cursed the Golden Generation. On the one hand, they were able to play every week with tremendously talented and technically gifted players; but in doing so, the true limitations of their game were hidden, unexposed from the cold light of day as their faults were covered and absorbed by their foreign team mates.

John Terry, for years, went unpunished for handballs and fouls in the area, his lack of pace covered for by various centre-back partners and Petr Cech at Chelsea, but there was no such safety net at international level. Frank Lampard, given free reign at Chelsea to be the fulcrum of the midfield, disappeared for England when there was no-one to carry the water for him in midfield. Only Wayne Rooney really comes close to being the genuine footballing superstar and powerhouse that we want him to be, but he doesn’t seem to want to do it at international level.

The upshot of this is, it’s not their fault they can’t do it for England. It’s the FA, it’s the clubs, it’s everyone who encourages the blood and thunder, brawns over brain attitude to developing players and playing the game in this country. It’s far too easy to blame foreign players and foreign managers, because it means avoiding the real problems at home.