Carragher backs Klinsmann for England coach job

Former England defender Jamie Carragher believes that current United States' head coach Jurgen Klinsmann will be the right person to replace the country's football team chief coach Roy Hodgson.

The ex-Manchester United star added that he is not a fan of former England striker Alan Shearer, whose name has also come up for the post.

Hodgson announced his resignation following England's humiliating 2-1 defeat to minnows Iceland in the round of 16 at the European Championship.

England Under-21 coach Gareth Southgate has emerged as the front-runner to fill the vacancy, while Alan Pardew and Eddie Howe have also been mentioned.

However, Carragher is open to the Football Association (FA) appointing a foreign coach, picking out German legend Klinsmann, who guided the US to a semi-final berth at the Copa America Centenario last week.

"Who should be the next England manager? The three-man committee of Martin Glenn, Dan Ashworth and David Gill will answer that question in the coming weeks. My own view is that international football should be about the best in your country against the best of someone else's. So I had always favoured an Englishman but there can be no complaints if the FA look to a foreign coach," Carragher was quoted as saying by Daily Mail on Tuesday.

"With that in mind, I wouldn't knock the idea of appointing Jurgen Klinsmann, who has been to a World Cup semi-final with Germany, a Copa America semi-final with the United States and knows our game. So if the FA look to cast its net further, there can't be complaints, even from Alan Shearer, who wasted no time throwing his hat into the ring after claiming Hodgson was 'tactically inept'."

Carragher pointed out Shearer's poor stint with Newcastle United in 2009 when the club failed to stay in the top-flight competition as a reason for not appointing him.

"Shearer's patriotism is admirable but there is more to being a successful manager than just patriotism and emotion. Shearer, after all, will remember how, after acting on emotion when Newcastle called him in 2009, he failed to stop the club he has supported all his life being relegated."

Carragher also blamed England's players for being simply too soft, both physically and mentally.

"Too soft. The more I think about England's humiliation against Iceland, the more those two words come into my mind. This is what England's players have become. The Academy Generation - for that is what they are - are soft physically and soft mentally," the 38-year-old said.

"We saw the end result in all its gruesome detail in Nice on Monday when another major tournament ended in calamity and blame," he added.

"Roy Hodgson, inevitably, carries the can. There was no way he could continue as England manager after the results and performances at Euro 2016 and he cannot escape the spotlight, but don't for one moment think the players should escape liability."

--IANS

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