New England manager Sam Allardyce admitted Wayne Rooney has a significant part to play in his plans but refused to give assurances about the player’s future as captain.
 Rooney recently expressed a desire to continue as skipper, despite criticism following England’s disastrous campaign at the 2016 European Championship in France.
 Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho last week promised the 30-year-old that he would keep the armband at club level. But Allardyce, speaking at his first press conference since taking over from Roy Hodgson, did not follow suit.
 Instead, England’s record goalscorer will have a nervous wait until September when Allardyce will meet his players for the first time ahead of their World Cup qualifier with Slovakia.
 “I don’t want to put myself out in the open just yet. It’s a decision that I’ll make once I’ve got my feet under the table,” Allardyce said, when asked if Rooney would retain the captaincy.
 “I have got to leave that until we reach all the players and get the coaching staff together and plan for the internationals in September.
 “Will I wait until I meet the players? I think so. Put it this way: I still think Wayne Rooney still has a massive place to play in the England side. I don’t think there is any doubt about that.”
 Allardyce would not be drawn on whether he thinks Rooney is more suited to a midfield or striking role, and plans to follow Mourinho’s lead on where to deploy the player.
 “What’s Rooney’s best position? I’m not saying! I think Jose will determine that,” added Allardyce.
 “Because if Jose says he is not going to play him in centre midfield and he is playing up front and scoring goals for Manchester United then it would be pointless me bringing him into England and playing him in centre midfield.”
 Allardyce, 61, acknowledged it is inevitable there will be occasions when he clashes with Premier League managers now he has crossed over into international management.
 He said: “The demands on Premier League managers and demand on me as England manager is bound to cause some conflict down the line because the pressures are far greater than ever before.
 “I think we suffered more sackings than ever before. So they are bound to want to protect their players and that is what I have to try and overcome with a little bit of give and take, hopefully.”
 Allardyce, who signed a two-year contract to manage England, has promised his players that they will work in a “fun” environment while he is in charge.
 “We don’t have to make it too monotonous when we are actually together,” he explained. “My style is very much in terms of man-management having a good relationship with the players. Not being distant. That’s not my style. I like to be in amongst the banter.”
 Martin Glenn, the Football Association’s chief executive, claimed that Allardyce was the only candidate that was offered the England job.
 And the former Blackburn, Bolton, Newcastle and Sunderland boss received a positive endorsement from legendary Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson, who was consulted over the appointment.
 “The single biggest thing (Ferguson said) was he’s a winner. He’s got the edge. Winners can sometimes be a bit awkward. That was his phrase. He’s a winner,” Glenn said.
 Sammy Lee, Allardyce’s former assistant at Bolton Wanderers, will be part of England’s backroom staff while Glenn also confirmed that the FA are holding talks with Bayern Munich assistant coach Paul Clement over a part-time role.

FA chief defers winter break plans until 2019

By Andy Hunter in London/The Guardian

Martin Glenn, the chief executive of the Football Association, has said there is a growing desire within English football for a mid-season break but it will be 2019-20 at the earliest before one can be introduced.
On Monday, Sam Allardyce used his first day as England manager to reiterate his belief a winter break would improve the team’s lamentable tournament record.
“It would help the Premier League and us at international level if we could achieve that,” he said. “January and February is always the most difficult time to get players through.”
Allardyce, however, is unlikely to see the benefit during his England tenure.
Glenn said there is no prospect of a winter break during the current Premier League broadcasting deal, which runs from this summer until 2019, but he believes there is broad agreement on the merits of a break among the FA, Premier League and Football League.
“I can’t make it happen,” Glenn said. “To make it happen you need a whole-game solution. You need an agreement. The Football Association is a competition owner, as owner of the FA Cup, and the Premier League and English Football League need to agree too.
“There is a consensus that it would be a good thing to do. I’ll say no more than that. We can do our bit about fixture congestion and that’s why from the quarter-finals (of the FA Cup this season) we’re not going to replays.
“If we are going to get a winter break, which the FA very much wants, it would be after the current Premier League TV-rights deal is done. There’s more consensus for that than you might think. What scared people about winter breaks in the past is the thought of it being between Boxing Day and New Year but it doesn’t have to be then. It can be after the FA Cup third round in mid-January. We can’t do it on our own. We can do it collaboratively with the leagues but I think there is a growing consensus that it should happen,” he added.
Glenn confirmed he, the FA’s technical director Dan Ashworth and the vice-chairman David Gill spoke to four other candidates for the England job—Steve Bruce and Jürgen Klinsmann were among them – but said only Allardyce was offered the position.
“He fitted all the criteria we were looking for,” Glenn said. “What we didn’t want was a short-term mercenary to come in to ‘do a job’ for a couple of years.”
He added: “I’m not going to tell you who else we spoke to, that would be inappropriate because it was a confidential process. We had interviews with four other people.
“We spoke (about the candidates) to former England managers—Glenn Hoddle for one – other successful managers who haven’t run England teams, Harry Redknapp for example, and former players like Gary Lineker and Rio Ferdinand.
“We also spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson. He said Sam’s single biggest quality was he’s a winner, that he’s got an edge. Winners can sometimes be a bit awkward, that was his phrase. We only offered it to one person, Sam, because he hit all the criteria.”