The year 1984 was a remarkable one for English football managers. Joe Fagan won the league, European Cup and Milk Cup treble with Liverpool; Keith Burkinshaw led Tottenham Hotspur to glory in the Uefa Cup; and Howard Kendall’s Everton beat Graham Taylor’s Watford to lift the FA Cup at Wembley. It would have been a clean sweep of trophies for English bosses had Ron Atkinson’s Manchester United not faltered in the semi-finals of the Cup-Winners’ Cup, losing narrowly to eventual champions Juventus. All in all, winning five of the six available major trophies wasn’t a bad haul. It would be remarkable if any English manager wins one of them in 2017 – or any other year for that matter.

The last 33 years have not been kind to English coaches. Fagan and Burkinshaw remain the last English managers to win the European Cup and Uefa Cup/Europa League; no Englishman has won a European trophy since Bobby Robson (who was in charge of Barcelona) won the Cup-Winners’ Cup (a competition that no longer exists) in 1997; no Englishman has won the Premier League (104 have tried); Harry Redknapp – who was last seen leading Jordan to a 5-1 defeat in Australia – is the last English manager to have won the FA Cup; and Steve McClaren is the last English coach to have won the League Cup – and that was 13 years ago.

Why are English footballers so reluctant to move to other European leagues? Read more

So who would choose an Englishman to run their club? Well, Hull City gave Mike Phelan a chance last summer when they appointed him as caretaker manager. Phelan had never led a club before but he went into the job with remarkable pedigree. He made 485 appearances as a player in England, played once for the national team and coached at five different clubs, including five priceless years sitting at the right hand of Alex Ferguson as Manchester United won three Premier League titles, two League Cups and a Club World Cup.

His apprenticeship had been long and thorough but it didn’t work out for Phelan at Hull. The team won their first three games of the season, he was crowned the manager of the month for August, and then the club began to sink to the bottom of the league. By the time he was sacked last week, they had won 13 points from 20 games and looked destined for relegation.

The Hull City owners wanted to move in a “new direction” and had a choice to make: should they go with another English coach or appoint someone from abroad? They went with Marco Silva, the 39-year-old Portuguese manager who guided Estoril from the Portuguese second division to the Europa League, won the Taça de Portugal while in charge of Sporting Lisbon and won the league title while at Olympiacos last season.

This is how Paul Merson reacted to the appointment while on Sky Sports on Saturday:

I could win the league with Olympiakos. I’m not even joking. They’ve won it 107 times and it’s only been going 106 years. Why does it always have to be a foreign manager? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against foreign managers – Klopp, Pep Guardiola, these are top-drawer managers. This geezer ain’t any different to Gary Rowlett. These ex-footballers, they’re doing four-year, five-year courses, costing a fortune to do their badges, and none of them get a chance. None of them get a chance to manage at the top level. The ones who are – like Sean Dyche, who is doing a great job at Burnley – are fighting relegation every year. Will he get a good job? This is a good job. Hull are a good team, great stadium, some very good players. But what does he know about the Premier League?

Warming to the theme, Phil Thompson interjected and added:

“What does he know about Hull? It’s quite astonishing that they’ve plumped for someone like this. It’s just baffling, when there’s a lot of people out there who know about the Premier League – know what;s required to dig it. He’s not got a clue. It’s manna from heaven to be given this job ... it’s another slap in the face to all our British cultures and managers – and what they have done to make this appointment for six months is just embarrassing to the football club.”

Is Hull City’s decision “astonishing”, “baffling” and “embarrassing”? Given that the top seven clubs in the Premier League are managed by foreign managers – and that Howard Wilkinson was the last English manager to win the top division – is it such a maddening surprise that Hull chose a young, successful and well-travelled foreign coach?

Perhaps English coaches deserve more chances but, when they are appointed to the most prestigious roles, their records tend to be astonishing, baffling and embarrassing. Roy Hodgson took Fulham to the Europa League final and was awarded with Liverpool and England jobs. You won’t hear many Liverpool fans mourning his departure and he didn’t win a single knockout game with England at three tournaments. At least Hodgson made it to the tournaments, unlike Steve McClaren, whose League Cup triumph with Middlesbrough earned him the top job. In fairness to McClaren, he made it through a qualifying campaign, unlike Sam Allardyce, whose two-year contract was terminated after one match.

Hull had tried eight different managers in the last 15 years and all of them were born in England. Now they are taking a different approach with a Portuguese coach. If Silva fails to keep the club in the Premier League, someone else will probably take his place. Football is terrifically meritocratic in that sense. If an English manager wins a title, earns promotion or takes his club on a cup run, he will be in with a shout of taking the job. But if he wants to stay in the role and keep progressing, he will have to do something most of his countrymen have not: succeed.