The Friday Spitter

It's not easy to forget you are English when you're living in Spain. You only have to pull out a sandwich in public before 2pm, cross a road without waiting for the green man or flinch at the bang of an impromptu firework to remember where you come from. The look of a native refreshes your memory in an instant.

However, Fabio Capello has done a decent job of sapping all my patriotism over the past four years, playing a brand of football that I can only describe as foreign. He's not the only guilty party in recent times. The Sven-Goran Eriksson era was never more than a damp squib, while Steve McClaren was an unmitigated disaster.

But this isn't a moan about underachievement, nor is it a xenophobic rant about appointing foreigners per se. This is an appeal to the FA: forget what the foreigners do, stop chasing continental-style coaches and give us a good old-fashioned British manager. Harry Redknapp's clearly your man, so let's stop messing about and start getting back to what we're good at.

Trouble is, too many people get hung up about winning and now it's come at the cost of our whole identity as a football nation. Personally, I think there's something rather charming about England going off like an express train at the start of tournaments and then being picked apart later on.

It's like a night out in Benidorm. Nobody can keep pace with the English early doors, but who really remembers the end of the night anyway? It's better to crash and burn spectacularly than make no impression whatsoever. Glorious failure is nothing to be ashamed of, it certainly beats what has been served up for the past eight years.

I don't believe England should ever expect to win anything at international level - more fool us, if we do - but I do believe we should be typically English in the way we go about our business. International football tournaments should be a celebration of football culture, a variety performance for the beautiful game, not a prize on which we should pin our whole self-esteem.

Our aim should simply be to put our own inimitable stamp on proceedings, to make everyone sit up and take notice, to get out of the group and feature in that one classic knockout match at that is always remembered, more so than the final. A thrilling 2-2 draw, defeat on penalties and sighs of what might have been. Farewell England, cry the hosts, our tournament won't be the same without you.

When the news of Capello's resignation was announced this week, I was suddenly overcome by a sense of euphoria. I thought I'd given up on the national team, I thought I'd retired myself from the tedious Groundhog Day storyline once and for all but it was like I had awoken from a coma. Now I remember what supporting England used to be about and with the possibility that Redknapp might take over, it's what we might be all about once again.

Needless to say, this week's Spitter will be going on my all-expenses-paid trip to Poland and Ukraine.

Recommended bet:

• Man Utd/Man Utd double result at 2/1
• Birmingham/Birmingham double result at at 12/5
• West Ham/West Ham double result at 12/5
• Blackpool (-2) to beat Peterborough at 5/1
• Chesterfield to beat Charlton 1-0 at 10/1
• West Brom to beat Wolves 2-1 at 10/1