FA to wait on England appointment

The Football Association will not appoint a new England manager until the end of the season, general secretary Alex Horne has revealed.

Fabio Capello resigned as Three Lions head coach in February with Stuart Pearce given the position of interim boss for Wednesday’s 3-2 international friendly defeat to the Netherlands.

Horne said that a list of potential candidates to replace the Italian had been written up but in order to prevent disruption of the domestic season, any approach would not be made for a couple of months.

“We’ve got a list. Long, short … there’s definitely a list. It’s a back-end-of-the-season decision for us,” Horne said upon his arrival at the International FA board meeting.

“We recognise that a lot of the managers on the list are employed and we don’t want to interrupt anyone’s season.”

“We’re not rushing this and we are expecting something at the back end of the season.”

Horne added that appointing a manager so close to the start of Euro 2012 was not a risk and that he believes the England team is in good shape going into the UEFA finals.

“That’s perfectly realistic,” he said. “We’ve got all of our operational plans in place. We can deliver a squad into Poland so it is perfectly possible.”

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp remains overwhelming favourite to land the job.