O'Neill Counts Himself Out As Options Shrink

The true size of the task confronting the Football Association's chief executive, Brian Barwick, to appoint a successor to Steve McClaren emerged last night as potential candidates, including his preferred target Martin O'Neill, began distancing themselves from the vacant England manager's position.

Barwick, along with other members of the 12-man FA board, had targetted O'Neill as his first choice to take up the reins of the national team, only for the Northern Irishman to move swiftly to commit his future to Aston Villa. While Fabio Capello has reiterated his interest, another of the potential candidates, the former Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, is understood also to be instinctively reluctant to take on the job, though much would depend upon what would be on offer from the FA.

While Barwick anticipates this will prove a lengthy recruitment process, with his board having been keen to stress no deadline for an appointment has been set, confirmation that O'Neill does not wish to be considered comes as a blow. The former Leicester City and Celtic manager was interviewed for the position relinquished by Sven-Goran Eriksson before McClaren's appointment while he was unattached only for differences to emerge at that early stage over what he and the FA perceived the role to be.

O'Neill has spoken with the Villa owner Randy Lerner, who had been quoted last week claiming that he would not stand in his manager's way if he was approached by the FA, but is anxious not to disturb the steady momentum he is building up at the club. "It is a straightforward decision for me to make," said O'Neill. "I want to be at Villa. I love the job and this is where I want to be. I have spoken to Randy Lerner. He wanted to clear up what he thought he had said last time about a hypothetical situation. But he can look after himself. He is a more intelligent man than me and he knows what he said.

"I have got a contract. They are not meaningless. The commitment is there. I know it is a year rolling contract, but it would not make any difference if it was two or three years. My circumstances have changed [since the summer of 2006]. I was not, at that stage, in club management and I am now. Prevaricating would only cause uncertainty. The moment I lose a game, Aston Villa people will be asking if I am committed, and I am committed to the cause. The last time I was not in that situation and I was flattered to be asked for an interview. Obviously I did not do very well. I was not expecting the same again this time around."

O'Neill had effectively been put in an impossible situation at his weekly press briefing yesterday, commenting on a job that has yet to be offered at an event staged by his current employers. Barwick, who was in an FA party which flew to South Africa last night for the 2010 World Cup draw, is likely still to approach the 55-year-old should his investigations into the best possible candidates re-affirm his established perceptions of O'Neill, yet that process is unlikely to come to fruition before the end of the season.

Mourinho's availability makes him an attractive prospect at present, although the FA will be wary of his outspoken manner, and that he favours a return to club management, most likely in Italy. Italy's World Cup winning coach Marcello Lippi, whose lack of English is an obstacle, and Capello, unemployed since his dismissal by Real Madrid in the summer, would be high-profile alternatives with the latter already making it known he would welcome an approach. "It would be a very interesting challenge and difficult challenges have always fascinated me," he said. "I hear that Mourinho has turned it down. I was convinced he would accept it, but he must have something else in mind. But I am older [at 61] than Mourinho."

Other possibilities are already falling by the wayside. The Blackburn Rovers manager Mark Hughes signed an improved contract at Ewood Park yesterday that will tie him to the club until 2010 and, although he admitted he was keen to return to international management at some stage, that was only likely to be "10 to 15 years down the line". West Ham United's Alan Curbishley and the Newcastle United manager Sam Allardyce, both strong candidates during the last selection progress, have ruled themselves out as, for what it is worth, has Eriksson.

"There are candidates out there who are not involved," added O'Neill. "Capello has made it clear he would like the job and he has a fantastic pedigree. Maybe chase down Jose, wherever he might happen to be, sunning himself on some beach, and you might even give it to him. There are fantastic candidates who are out there and not in club management."