There were no major surprises in Monday’s announcement that Sven will be leaving at the end of this summer’s World Cup.

After the turbulent couple of weeks the Swede has endured, it was more a confirmation of what we all knew was going to happen rather than a spectacular revelation.

In fact the only real question is was he pushed or did he jump? And the answer to that is probably a bit of both. Essentially you got the feeling that both the FA and Sven had grown a little bit tired of each other in recent times.

The FA is fed up of having a manager who spends most of his time on the front pages of the newspapers rather than the back ones. And Sven has had enough of the constant harassment by the media.

On a personal level I still feel he should have gone now and given a caretaker boss an extremely healthy five months to prepare for the summer tournament. Managers who say they are leaving tend to lose a lot of their influence over their teams and the players tend to be a bit more relaxed knowing they will be playing for a new boss soon.

Not ideal when preparing for a World Cup in which England have their best chance of winning in decades.

Yet Sven has promised to do all he can to leave on a high note with the trophy tucked under his arm and I believe him when he says he will do everything he can to succeed in Germany.

After all, a good showing this summer will increase his valuation when he re-enters the job market. And we all know how much he thinks of money.

Meanwhile, for the FA the real work begins now – appointing Sven’s successor. Among the favourites are Bolton’s Sam Allardyce and Charlton’s Alan Curbishley, both of whom would be excellent choices.

It’s too early for both Paul Jewell and Stuart Pearce to be serious contenders while giving the job to Steve Mclaren would be a step downwards and backwards.

Of course the FA could go down a different route and appoint another foreign manager but I think they probably want to avoid that high-cost, potentially controversial path for a second time.

Let’s just hope that whoever they appoint is better at keeping his bits and pieces in his trousers and his mouth shut in front of strangers than his predecessor.

After all, managing the English national team is about making other people’s dreams come true – not just your own.

Souness, McLaren

It’s a miserable life being a manager in the North East of England right now.

Souness at Newcastle, Mclaren at Middlesborough and poor old McCarthy at Sunderland are all in charge of struggling teams which are in the bottom half of the league.

Yet strangely, of the three, only Souness looks likely to get the chop in the foreseeable future, a possibility that was substantially increased when thousands of fans demonstrated outside St James Park on Saturday following their 1-0 home defeat to Blackburn.

If the Sunday papers are to be believed then the only thing keeping Souness in a job right now is the fact that to fire him and his back room staff would cost around five million pounds in compensation.

But you get the impression there is only so long financial considerations will keep him safe.

Sunderland, on the other hand, are unlikely to part company with McCarthy despite the fact that they are destined to go straight back down to the Championship.

Their away win at West Brom was their first victory in months and took them to the lofty heights of nine points for the entire season. A pathetic return, really, but the fans don’t hold it against the manager and it looks like he will be safe no matter what.

However, just down the road at Middlesborough, there is a crisis brewing of almost spectacular proportions.

Earlier in the season chairman Steve Gibson was concerned about falling attendances, something he put down to the team playing boring football. But now the team has much bigger problems than the quality of football on show – like potential relegation for example.

Without a league win in nearly two months, Mclaren’s team have conceded 10 goals in their last two matches including that humiliating 7-0 defeat by Arsenal and Saturday’s home defeat to Premiership new boys Wigan.

Despite the fact that Mclaren signed a new contract with the club only last year I genuinely believe he would have been out on his ear by now if it wasn’t for the fact that they are still in the UEFA Cup.

Gibson has remained loyal to Mclaren so far and I can’t see him turning around and stabbing him in the back at this point when European success is still a possibility and relegation anything but a certainty.

There is absolutely no doubting the importance of football in the North East. It is one of the most passionate areas of England when it comes to the beautiful game.

It’s just sad that with three huge teams, with magnificent grounds and incredibly loyal supporters, not one of them seems to be able to get their act together this season.

Liam Lawrence

In keeping with the above theme, it’s over to Sunderland winger Liam Lawrence for quote of the week.

Speaking after their West Brom win – only their second of the season – Lawrence said: “Win bonus? What’s that? Do we get them? We had one once. Hopefully we will get a little bit of something now.”

Not lost his sense of humour then, despite playing for what could turn out to be the worst ever Premier League team.

Another man who likes looking on the lighter side is Norwich boss Nigel Worthington.

At the end of their match with Watford – in which he had let in three goals – goalkeeper Robert Green threw his shirt into the fans.

“Somebody told me they chucked it back… and he dropped it,” Worthington said.

And Sven wants to take Green to the World Cup…

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