One of my favourite football films has to be Mike Bassett: England Manager, a satire which is all too close to the bone regarding the unenviable task of managing one of the international teams on the other side of the Irish Sea.
There are a couple of great scenes where Ricky Tomlinson brings out both the best and comical from the beleaguered Bassett, all the while illustrating what England managers have to put up with.
One is the tabloid media. Right after the brilliant half-time rant scene, Bassett faces the waiting press in a scene that illustrates the constant questions Roy Hodgson and his predecessors have had to face.
In the scene above, Bassett plays devil's advocate with a member of the press corp: "Come on, smart ass, you put your bloody neck on the line", before finishing "you've all made your bloody minds up, so what the hell are you asking me for? W*****!" One can imagine many real-life managers would love to vent their frustration to the press just like that.
The other scene that jumps to mind is the one where Bassett heads to the FA headquarters to try and meet the head of the organisation, only to discover that all letters sent by England managers to their bosses (even dating back to Ron Greenwood's time in the 1970s) made it past the door-frame but only as far as the barely-existent gap beneath the door-mat:
While its a movie, the satire has more than a grain of truth to it.
The same FA is now looking for the unlucky figure who will replace Hodgson in order to become the lightning rod for criticism and scrutiny.
A mix of overseas and homegrown names have been bandied about. But in a roundabout way, it's the so-called "foreign" that is interesting to get to.
England have had two of those: Sven Goran Eriksson and Fabio Capello.
The Italian's high point was getting England to the 2010 World Cup knockout stage that ended with footballing annihilation at the feet of a vibrant young Germany team. Of course, the Frank Lampard goal that was-a-goal-but- not-counted-as-a-goal did happen. But the brutal truth is that Germany played England off the park.
Eriksson's legacy has been tainted given that he didn't take a so-called Golden Generation to success either.
But the truth is the Swede is the most successful England manager in recent English history. Not since Euro 96, had an England team made it past the first knockout stage at a tournament (granted Glenn Hoddle who is interested in returning to the role was unlucky not to do so in 1998) which Eriksson achieved at the World Cups of 2002 and 2006. It hasn't happened since, with England unable to get beyond the first knockout stage in any tournament.
So, technically, England 's FA have tried foreign managers but they have gone for broadly the same type of overseas coach.
Fabio Capello, left, and Sir Alex Ferguson share a laugh before the Champions League final soccer match between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid at the San Siro stadium in Milan, Italy, Saturday, May 28, 2016. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Capello is a Champions League, La Liga and Serie A-winning manager but his overall style is conservative.
Eriksson, meanwhile, was highly influenced by the 4-4-2 through his football education in Sweden during a football career viewed as successful pre-England and less successful after he had been put through the mill of the English media and system.
Indeed Hodgson was an influence on Eriksson during his own time as a league-winning coach in Sweden.
Eriksson and Capello of course are not identical managers even if they fit into the English-overseas-English-overseas-English pattern of the FA's most recent appointments. But where they are relevant in this argument is they didn't represent true change stylistically.
Take Euro 2004. Eriksson stuck to 4-4-2 and the age-old problem for England managers: putting the collective above the individual. So to get Beckham, Gerrard, Lampard and Scholes in the same team, the fourth name on that list got shoved out wide to the left when that is not his position despite his own individual brilliance.
So, if England had had a left-sided problem for some time before, they now had a left-sided mess afterwards.
So the "foreign" option has not necessarily been such a great departure from some of the philosophies shared by some of the homegrown English options. It's not like going for a Pep Guardiola-type figure whose style of football is a stark contrast to what has come before.
Thus, the term "foreign" has been put out as a descriptive category regardless of the individual styles of the managers in question. It doesn't necessarily espouse change by dint of the manager being born and raised outside the system.
England don't use 4-4-2 now as a staple in any case. Hodgson himself has been part of the move away from that at international level.
What would be a real revolution however would be a manager capable of sticking a metaphorical middle finger to the press and if it's possible to get away with it, at the bosses, in order to plough on with one's own ideas.
But if they do go down the foreign option, that should not be regarded as a revolution in itself as Eriksson and Capello proved.
The manager's philosophy - and an ability to stand up for it in face of loud opposition - should be what is regarded as revolutionary and suitable before then looking at the nationality printed on the passport.
Because at the end of the day, homegrown and overseas options have all run aground due to the same issues faced by one Mike Bassett.
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