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David Batty was then an inspired choice away to Georgia.Then came Italy at Wembley and both judgement and luck deserted Hoddle. Against Moldova the decision to cap David Beckham was vindicated, while the involvement of Andy Hinchcliffe had been justified by the time he was injured.Against Poland at home Alan Shearer's finishing got Hoddle out of the fix created by pairing Shearer and Les Ferdinand up front without a linking player. They appear more a series of gut reactions.When a manager plays his hunches the first requirement, as Napoleon asked of his generals, is for him to be lucky So far Lady Luck is merely flirting with Hoddle. While accepting that Hoddle has been hampered by injuries and the pressure to produce instant results, his first five teams have not given the impression of a vision, as Terry Venables' came to do. Taylor's reign as England manager was characterised by a number of odd selections, some came off, most did not. ENGLAND 2 Sheringham, pen 18 Fowler 54MEXICO 0Attendance (at Wembley Stadium) 48,076There is a school of thought which contends that Glenn Hoddle, like Graham Taylor, is a backer of hunches. Making himself available at all times to football writers did not work for Taylor who eventually found himself almost friendless.There is no way of getting the relationship absolutely right but at this early stage of Hoddle's reign it would be a shame to see him fall into the traps that caused some of his predecessors more anguish than they could comfortably handle..

Six years before Bobby Robson almost got England into the 1990 World Cup final he was under heavy fire in newspapers and suffered intrusions into his private life. Even with the World Cup in his grasp Ramsey was criticised in some quarters for leaving out Jimmy Greaves, and the England team's tactical deployment. "...there would have been a whole set of different headlines if Matt had scored, but these people in the media will not affect us, we have to rise above that, as coaching staff and players."There is nothing new in this. For Hoddle to complain that too much was made of this indicates naivety or, at the very least, a gap in education.Another issue that he touched on sharply was the controversial inclusion of Matthew Le Tissier against Italy.

I have spoken to a lot of Premiership managers, and although some feel rest is needed at this time, they fully understand the needs of the national team," he wrote.Understanding those needs and going along with them are two different things as the Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson, made clear when expressing concern for the welfare of his players. "The press have been trying to make a story out of the upcoming tournament in June.. Brazil, Italy and the French. This ignores the pretty obvious fact that the public are of paramount importance.The programme for Saturday's match included comments from Hoddle about issues of reporting that have clearly irritated him. This was one of the things that led to Graham Taylor's downfall.In view of the problems it created for him, and the changed order of things, maybe Ramsey's example is not one Hoddle should pick up on but there was something to commend it.In matters of communication Hoddle, a decent man, suffers by comparison with Terry Venables who, we can be sure, would have avoided the mistake of stating that the box office returns for Saturday's match were not his responsibility but the Football Association's commercial department. "We didn't tell the Germans about D-Day," he said when refusing to go into detail about selection and strategy.However, a golden rule of stewardship in football, I think, is to avoid debates beforehand with representatives of newspapers and television, some of whom regard themselves foolishly as technical experts.