You're not good enough twice and Fulham at the weekend

Lee Carsley got himself removed from the candidate list to replace Gareth Southgate as permanent England manager the night he started a match without a recognised striker. It wasn't his babble after the match, it was that he believed the hype. It was his to lose.

The disrespect he showed the strikers on the bench that night was a disgrace. And it showed why he wasn't good enough for the job.

And now that the FA are appointing a German to manage the national side .. I just don't know. I never really liked the international breaks in the first place but we have a foreigner managing the side, I think I've lost all interest.

Where is or maybe more to the point, what is the English team identity? It's not English anymore, whatever happens. And it's not that he's German by the way, it's that he isn't English. Are we short of English managers? Have we not learnt anything? 

And if he wins something, it's not going to be the same. A foreigner winning silverware for England. An Englishman isn't good enough to win something for England. It doesn't sit right with me. And I know it's okay to do this, we've done it before, but I didn't really like it then much like I don't like it now.

And the thing is, you'd have thought the FA would have been above 'there are no rules to say we can't appoint a foreigner' line. English players are the only ones that can represent England and if we're going to win silverware, it should be an Englishman that manages the team to do it. It's maybe just me, but it's okay. 

But all you English managers, you're not good enough. And for the record, our manager had a better win percentage at the side they once both managed but as Tuchel said himself in a press conference today, he's used to working with people every day, this is going to be very different. Why couldn't we take this gamble on an Englishman?

And, that written, it's time for me to let it pass because proper football is back this weekend and we are in London to play Fulham on Saturday. But hopefully England can win something. I think I'm going to start following Ireland.

I should stop. Proper football is back. I'm moving on. I am.

Match facts from the BBC

• Fulham lost this exact fixture 2-1 in February last season – they’ve never lost consecutive home league games against Aston Villa before.

• Aston Villa have won five of their last six Premier League games against Fulham (L1), including the last three in a row. It’s more wins than they’d managed in their previous 19 against the Cottagers in the top-flight (W4 D10 L5), while they’ve never won four in a row against them in their league history.

• Aston Villa have lost just one of their last 12 Premier League games in London (W8 D3), a 5-0 loss to Crystal Palace on the final day of 2023-24. Their eight wins in this time (all under Unai Emery) are as many as they’d managed in their previous 48 top-flight games in the capital.

• Fulham are unbeaten in their three Premier League home games so far this season (W2 D1). They last had a longer run without defeat at Craven Cottage from the start of a campaign in 2011-12 (4).

• Aston Villa are unbeaten in their last five league games (W3 D2), though their 0-0 draw with Manchester United last time out was their first clean sheet in 12 Premier League matches. They last recorded back-to-back league shutouts in December last season.

• Fulham are the only side yet to score from a set-piece situation (excluding penalties) in the Premier League this season, while only Arsenal (4) have scored more such goals so far than Aston Villa (3).

• No team has scored more goals from crosses than Aston Villa in the Premier League this season (5). No player has scored more such goals than Ollie Watkins (2), while Lucas Digne and Youri Tielemans have two such assists each – only Bukayo Saka (4) has more.

• Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins has scored five goals against Fulham in his career in English league football, including three in the Premier League last term. Only against Brighton (6) has he netted more.

• No player has played more passes (including crosses) into the opposition box than Fulham’s Andreas Pereira in the Premier League this season (64), with the Brazilian also creating the most chances from set plays (16).

• Aston Villa’s Jhon Durán has four goals in just 184 minutes of action in the Premier League this season, averaging a goal every 46 minutes so far. This is the best minutes-per-goal ratio of anyone to feature for at least 90 minutes this term.