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There were fears for the future of the current England manager after last night’s dismal 2-0 defeat to Croatia. Appearing at a post-match press conference, Steve McLaren seemed on edge, sweated profusely, and sported what onlookers described as a turnip shaped ‘pro-tuber-ence’ on his head. ‘I don’t know where it come from,’ said McLaren when quizzed about what is an unusually early crop in any manager’s career. ‘That second goal went went in and I was thinking of ways we might covertly slip Steven Gerarrd into a more orthodox 4-4-2. Then, bugger me, Frank Lampard went and passed the ball to one of our players! It’s then that I got this splitting headache. I turned to Terry and he points to my head and said “What the bloody hell’s that?” Next thing I know, I started to feel… How shall we say… a little bit “root vegetable”?’

Later, assistant manager Terry Venables admitted to reporters: ‘The team doctor has now confirmed that Steve has suffered an allergic reaction to tonight’s defeat.’ He went on: ‘Personally, I would have thought being in charge of Middlesbrough, Steve would have grown immune to losing, but there you go. I’m no medical man.’

As calls for the manager’s resignation increase, an unknown Swedish manager has emerged as the leading candidate to take over the England job. Said a source within the FA: ‘We’ve got somebody in mind and I think every fan will like our choice. At least this guy knows how to win qualifying matches.’

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 11th, 2006 at 10:41 pm and is filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.