STEPHEN McGOWAN: Fergie and Tuchel sagas felt symbolic … like a final nail in the coffin of British managers

It doesn’t matter who shot JR Ewing. Back in the days when Dallas was the warm-up for Match of the Day and Sportscene, the old sharpshooters of British management blew their enemies away with a half-time hairdryer.

When Jock Stein, Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson dominated, the language of the dressing room was English with a heavy dose of Anglo-Saxon profanity. No translator was needed.

Times move on and so does football. Nowadays, a coach in the English Premier League is more likely to be called Jose or Andoni than Jock or Alex. The era of the old-fashioned British management giant is over.

The news of Sir Furious being pushed towards the exit at Manchester United as Thomas Tuchel checked in as England manager felt symbolic.

The king had been deposed from his throne. And a new emperor rode into Blighty to raise the royal standard on the flagpole.

When the Premier League started in 1992-93, all but one of the 22 blunders came from England, Scotland or Northern Ireland. The only exception was Wimbledon’s Joe Kinnear, born in Ireland before moving to Watford at the age of eight.

In August 2011, Ferguson was one of seven Scottish managers in the English Premier League, and now they are all gone. In the three decades since the EPL’s inception, an Englishman has never actually won the EPL and those wondering why Eddie Howe failed to make the FA’s final shortlist should probably start there.

England pundits were in stitches all week trying to explain why they loved the idea of ​​Spaniard Pep Guardiola taking charge on Tuesday but loathed the idea of ​​German Thomas Tuchel coming in on Wednesday.

While Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville and Danny Mills were wringing their hands asking why, oh why, an Englishman couldn’t do the job, all that was missing was Stan Boardman on Sky Sports News in rolled up trousers and a knotted handkerchief on his head .

Tuchel’s arrival almost overshadowed the news that Sir Alex had lost his role as £2million-a-year global ambassador at Old Trafford.

Suspend disbelief that he ever earned such large sums for a meet-and-greet gig and that the Godfather’s dismissal felt like yet another nail in the coffin of the modest British boss.

Five years ago, when a job came up, the bookmakers would press the F5 key and the usual list of names including Martin O’Neill, Sam Allardyce, Harry Redknapp, Roy Hodgson and Mark Hughes filled the screen. A chairman would ask for Sir Alex’s recommendation and the deal was done with a nod and a wink.

Nowadays the old guys don’t get in anymore. A new generation of Arab and American owners are scanning the data cards looking for the name of the next 30-something overseas prodigy willing to hand over control of the player trading model to a sporting director or director of football.

Take away the likes of Howe or Brendan Rodgers and the one place you’ll never see Britain’s elite boss now is in the technical realm of a club with trophy-winning aspirations. The best they can hope for these days is a matchday performance, where tales of the past are told to well-oiled punters in a hospitality suite.

Times are a changing and the quest to get the program started exposed the Hearts hierarchy to a world of heartache this week.

Had Tony Bloom’s Jamestown Analytics recommended Sweden’s Neils Critchtoffsen instead of Neil Critchley, an Englishman with a patchy record at Blackpool and QPR, the Tynecastle board would have been praised for its modern, forward-thinking thinking.

By heeding the data that told them to opt for a meat-and-two-vegetable candidate from Crewe, they were accused of making a Hibs-type appointment. And everyone knows how they end up.

Recently this column has fixated on the shortage of bright young players who deserve a chance in the first team. Hardly anyone wonders where all the world-class managers from England and Scotland have gone. Or that the two issues may be more closely linked than anyone wants to admit.

With Tuchel’s appointment, the English Football Association have just acknowledged the failure of their own coach training system. All this talk about fostering an England DNA has been thrown in the bin next to Lee Carsley.

No one will care who sang the national anthem and who didn’t if Tuchel plays a Sarina Wiegman and leads England to victory in a major final in 18 months’ time.

And once he does, you can put the kettle on for those who marched to Wembley with pitchforks and flaming torches and were the first to fly a St. George flag from a car window on the M6.

Celtic comeback for a fit Tierney is a no-brainer

The annual Kieran Tierney to Celtic rumor is active again. And it hardly takes the deductive powers of detective John Rebus to conclude that there might be something in it this time.

That Alex Valle deal in August was the giveaway. When Celtic smashed their transfer record by signing Adam Idah and Arne Engels, their willingness to settle for a left-back on a 12-month loan was a curious anomaly.

There was no purchase option. There is no realistic suggestion that a 20-year-old under lock and key at Barcelona would spend four or five years in Scottish football. While Greg Taylor needed someone to give him a boost, a permanent signing made more sense all around.

The usual accusations of money-grabbing and a lack of ambition ignored the more intriguing possibility. What if they already had a plan for next summer?

The penny finally dropped when footage emerged this week of Brendan Rodgers deep in conversation with Tierney at the Celtic Foundation’s London Gala. Fans bored by a turgid week of international football started putting two and two together. And for once, they can top up the amount to make four.

But due to a serious hamstring injury sustained against Switzerland at the European Championship, Tierney is said to have moved elsewhere by now. To another club in England or back to Spain, where he spent a successful loan spell at Real Sociedad. His setback has created an opportunity for Celtic next summer.

Listen, no Scottish club can take away a £10 million player who will spend his life on a treatment table.

But with a year left at Arsenal, Tierney becomes a more realistic proposition for a club like Celtic than would have been the case in August. If he’s fit, that’s no problem.