McClaren Called to Account By Fa

Steve McClaren is to be summoned to provide an official explanation to the Football Association's international committee about England's dreadful run of results. Several FA councillors have run out of patience with McClaren only seven months into his tenure and there will be strong and vociferous recommendations for him to be sacked if England fail to beat Andorra tomorrow evening.

Such a failure is regarded as almost unimaginable given Andorra's lowly status in world football but McClaren's tenure has become a subject of intense debate among the FA hierarchy and they intend to question him on his return to England about what they perceive to be a conspicuous lack of leadership.

His critics within Soho Square have come to the conclusion that he was the wrong man for the job although, crucially, the FA's chief executive, Brian Barwick, is extremely reluctant to accept McClaren should be fired, not least because it would amount to an admission on his part that he badly blundered in appointing the former Middlesbrough manager in the first place.

McClaren still has supporters at FA headquarters but they are being increasingly outnumbered and he will be asked to provide evidence to the 11-man international committee, chaired by the former Liverpool director Noel White, to support his claims that England are still on course to qualify for next summer's European Championship finals. Failing to reach the tournament would cost the already hard-up FA a multi-million-pound figure but it is considered a strong possibility at Soho Square and McClaren will be under pressure to put up a detailed and convincing argument.

While the official line from the FA is that McClaren retains the full support of his employers, a different story is emerging behind the scenes, where there is criticism not only of him but of Barwick. Many of the FA councillors regret the decision not to replace Sven-Goran Eriksson with Sam Allardyce of Bolton Wanderers or Martin O'Neill, who was not in work at the time but has subsequently become Aston Villa's manager. One of McClaren's opponents is understood to be David Dein, the Arsenal vice-chairman who is on the international committee.

The reasons for the disenchantment hardly need an explanation, McClaren having overseen a run of five matches without a win against Macedonia, Croatia, Holland, Spain and Israel. In four of those matches England have failed to score, equalling the country's worst-ever run, set in 1981 when Ron Greenwood was in charge, and there has been an audible anti-McClaren campaign among the team's followers. In Tel Aviv on Saturday there were chants of "what a load of rubbish" and when McClaren replaced Aaron Lennon with Stewart Downing there was an angry rendition of "you don't know what you're doing."

By failing to beat a poor Israel side England have left themselves five points behind Croatia at the top of their qualifying group and three behind second-placed Russia. In total, McClaren has won only three of his eight matches since taking over from Eriksson, the last victory being the 1-0 win in Macedonia six months ago. Accomplished players such as Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney and Frank Lampard have been unable to reproduce their club form and, though similar accusations were made during the Eriksson tenure, it does not help McClaren that he was the Swede's assistant manager, with responsibility for taking their training sessions.

McClaren has also had to counter an increasingly hostile media and there have been leaks from the dressing room that indicate his position is being undermined from within. All these details have been noted by the FA's international committee, which includes the governing body's chairman, Geoff Thompson, and the Premier League chairman, Sir Dave Richards.