Fulham/Ireland, you choose

Ray Lewington's application may now be in Mr Al Fayed's waste paper basket, but another manager has distanced himself from the Fulham manager job.   After Slaven Bilic declined last week, Martin Jol has now made noises about the squad not being good enough.   Which leaves us with unproven John Collins and a number of proven managers with somewhat mixed backgrounds.

The Betfair odds now have Terry Venables, of all people, as second favourite behind Collins.  Roy Hodgson - who would be a good choice, I think - is next, then come the names that make us shudder:  Hoddle, McLaren, O'Leary.  Yikes.   Then we have the aforementioned Jol, Lewington and Bilic, then it gets even weirder, with Souness, Klinsmann, and Billy Davies.   If Graham Souness gets this job there'll be outrage on the terraces.    Paul Ince and Gerard Houllier are intriguing longshots, as are George Burley and Jacques Santini.

Somewhere in this list of names is our next manager.  John Collins' lack of experience is said to concern the board, and rightly so.  While he would presumably bring back a reversion to Tigana-esque passing patterns, could he win with this squad?   It would be quite a gamble at a time where the board needs certainty, or as close to certainty as they can get.   Which is why Venables starts to make sense.   Whatever we might think of the man, he does understand football, how things need to be done, how to make the best of available resources. I'm no Venables fan, but for Fulham's purposes he seems a sensible choice.

Roy Hodgson is another with a 'tactician' reputation, but he may find that our motley collection are not as malleable as he'd need them to be.   Oh, there's talent in the squad, but they have no confidence and are used to playing a certain way (directly, badly).   Is he a strong enough personality to come in, reinvigourate these players, and turn things around?   We cannot know, of course, but Venables has previous in this area, having rescued Bryan Robson's Middlesbrough under similar circumstances in 2000.   He hasn't managed a club property in years, but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

My prediction:  Collins AND Venables.