Clearly there are some highly talented young British manager-coaches, who a few years ago would be using the lower divisions of the Football League as stepping stones to the Premiership.

I’m thinking Lee Clark, Simon Grayson, Andy Scott, Aidy Boothroyd, Mark Robins, Paul Lambert here – but I’m not sure that any will ever get a crack at Premier League jobs.

Hopefully there will be the odd exceptions like Phil Brown and David Moyes – even Roberto Martinez at Wigan who may be Spanish but is an adopted Brit after spending so many years with Wigan and Swansea.

It’s vital to have the best of British in charge of our top clubs otherwise what’s the point of them taking coaching badges.

Unfortunately the biggest names don’t seem to make the best managers, but there should always be room for the Clark’s, the Grayson’s and the Scott’s to benefit from their foresight in learning from others during often abbreviated playing careers.

The days when footballers retired to run pubs are long gone, but unless they’re encouraged to stay in the game and have the incentive to get to the very top, we’ll have a ‘foreigners only need apply’ situation which would be intolerable.

Perhaps the best example of all in the British game is Martin O’Neill.

I think the Northern Irishman is a genius, and as I’ve said before in this column there isn’t a manager to touch him – apart from Ferguson.

Why do I rate him so highly? Take Sunday’s FA Cup-tie at Reading. At half-time few would have given Aston Villa a prayer. They were two down and being made to look second rate by the rampant Championship side.

But 12 minutes into the second half they were 3-2 up. That could only be down to the manager’s pep talk.

I don’t know whether he had a rant, but what I do know is that he transformed the self-belief of players who had looked drained and devoid of ideas, but came out as though he’d fed them on raw meat.

O’Neill has been a success wherever he has been – as a player with Nottingham Forest and Northern Ireland, as a manager at Wycombe, Norwich, Leicester, Celtic and now Villa.

No-one can boast such prolonged success at a variety of clubs and he is the perfect example of someone who has learned his trade and worked his way to the top.

Hugely intelligent he has the knack of getting the best out of players and if I were on the FA board I wouldn’t look any further than O’Neill when Fabio Capello calls time on his England contract.