If the Fiver was summoned into Big Office to detail its Tesco Budweiser QVC Beautiful Diamondique World Cup plans and answered:"Plans? Yes. Lots. Lots of lovely plans. And they're all super,thanks," it'd find itself accommodating five plump, steel-capped toesand a hairy ankle in its backside before it had reached the door. Butthe FA's less stringent: Brian Barwick got through this afternoon's Sven Successor Summit, at which the board was to hear the shortlist, without actually naming any names...........

......The unimaginative list reads: Martin O'Neill (13-8), Alan Curbishley(3-1), Steve McClaren (3-1) and Sam Allardyce (9-1). But if it didn't take much mental gymnastics to work that one out, try getting your noggin round this: Steve "I don't trust that word 'entertainment'" McClaren's odds have shrunk from 14-1 and the north east is abuzz with largely incomprehensible talk that the new England manager will be the man who's lifted Middlesbore to the giddy heights of 14th in the Premiership.

McClaren has worked with Sven long enough to have picked up a few pointers [DO drop captain if not fit, DON'T swap saliva with secretary and expect it to stay 'our little secret'] and, being a familiar face in the England camp, he is likely to get the vote from all three of Barwick's colleagues on the FA's hiring squad. The Fiver can't help thinking they'd recognise Hitler in an instant too, but that doesn't mean they should give him a job. Not that we're likening McClaren to Hitler, of course. McClaren can barely mobilise 11 men.

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