They used to tell a story at Plymouth Argyle, going back to the days when Peter Shilton had been placed in charge of the team, that offers a little snapshot perhaps of how sometimes even the greats of the sport can lose their sheen once they dabble in the unforgiving world of football management.

Shilton was player-manager, or rather goalkeeper-manager, at the time. Plymouth were slipping into trouble in the old Third Division, the fingers of relegation closing round their necks for the second time in three years, and Shilton was trying to encourage his players to believe they could clamber away from the bottom three and rise like a “pheasant from the flames”.

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After a slightly awkward silence, someone tentatively pointed out the word he might have been looking for was “phoenix”. Shilton, standing in front of his players as a double European Cup winner and the record England appearance-maker, paused for a few moments to take it in, the realisation dawning that his motivational speech had not gone quite as planned. He needed a line to reassert his authority. “I knew it began with an F,” he said.

The sport is littered with those kind of stories: managers who appear to have been employed because of what they achieved in their playing careers, rather than anything more substantial. Sometimes, it is chairmen or club owners being seduced by the idea of hiring one of the game’s A-listers. Or there are other times when it feels like a sentimental choice based on a player’s history at a club. More often than not, it is muddled thinking. Otherwise, Ossie Ardiles would have lasted longer than a year at Tottenham Hotspur and Stuart Pearce would still be pumping his fists at Nottingham Forest, to name but two.

But there are exceptions. No doubt many people suspected Swansea City might have been guilty of the same blurred judgment when Garry Monk was entrusted with the manager’s job 17 months ago. Monk was the club captain, a player who had been with them all the way on the journey through the leagues. His leadership qualities were clear but there was still the suspicion that Swansea’s chairman, Huw Jenkins, may have fallen into the trap that has caught so many others.

Looking back, perhaps those of us with reservations should have put more faith in the sensible working practices that are routinely employed at the Liberty Stadium. Monk has gone about his work with the intelligence and clarity that underpins everything at his club and, though it is easy sometimes in this business to make grand statements, it is also fair to say nobody fell off their chair in astonishment when Jonjo Shelvey floated the idea during an England press conference that Monk had already established himself, at the age of 36, as a credible successor for Roy Hodgson, whenever that time comes.

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England’s current manager could conceivably be in his last nine months of employment and unless we get too hung up about Monk’s age – and it was never a problem for Walter Winterbottom – then, yes, it is time to recognise the Swansea manager deserves to be among those who feature uppermost in the FA’s thinking. How can he possibly not be given the shrewdness of his work and the growing feeling within the sport that he ticks all the relevant boxes to go to the top of his profession?

No doubt there will be some who think that reeks of Swansea being flavour of the week on the back of beating Manchester United last weekend and the clear admission from Louis van Gaal, a European Cup winner and serial trophy-getter back in the day, that Monk’s tactical switches had been responsible for shifting the game in favour of the home side.

A more powerful counter-argument can be delivered, however, that Monk actually deserves an awful lot more praise than has come his way – a legacy, perhaps, of working at one of those clubs that probably warrant greater publicity than they receive – and that his record of achievement in the last year and a half should be enough in itself to remove some of the lingering scepticism.

Swansea did, after all, finish in the top eight last season for the first time in their history. They did that despite selling Wilfried Bony in January without a like-for-like replacement and, with six games to spare, they had equalled the record number of points they had previously accumulated in the Premier League years. In the process, they became only the third club of that era (and, yes, we all know football didn’t start in 1992) to record league doubles over United and Arsenal, following West Ham in 2006-07 and Chelsea in 2009-10. Swansea have subsequently set about the new season like a team that wants to go better again and it is difficult to understate Monk’s commitment to improving his club and, in turn, himself. Monk, a workaholic, devotes so many hours to ensure the team’s preparation for every game is absolutely meticulous there have been times when the only concern for Jenkins, and others at the club, is that the youngest manager in the league is almost too wrapped up in it.

Monk’s methods certainly differ from those of his predecessor, Michael Laudrup. Nobody should underestimate how difficult it must have been changing the dynamic from being one of the boys, a popular member of the dressing room, to being the guy in charge, telling people who were once his friends they are not in the team or – in the case of Nathan Dyer recently – that they need to find a new club.

The approach is probably encapsulated by the proclamation in the stairwell leading to Monk’s first-floor office: “This is the team that makes no excuse.” It is taken from his blueprint for Swansea, a document given to each player on his first day at the club. Footballers love excuses. So Monk removes them in advance by planning everything to a tee. He speaks in plain English rather than managerial cliches or jargon and if, like me, you tire sometimes of the preening and positioning of some in his industry you will probably find his unpretentious nature quite appealing.

The chapter devoted to him in Living on the Volcano, the latest book from Michael Calvin’s outstanding collection, contains one passage where Monk admits listening to some managers, with their soundbites and career predictions, and sticking rigidly to his own rules not to sound like “a dickhead, a politician”. More should follow suit.

A future England manager? Well, he should certainly be in the reckoning, though it is worth bearing in mind that the FA’s chief executive, Martin Glenn, and the technical director, Dan Ashworth, will not just consider Englishmen should Euro 2016 be Hodgson’s last tournament. The policy is to consider what the FA calls “naturalised Englishmen”, meaning the relevant people have not just spoken behind the scenes about the likes of Gareth Southgate and Gary Neville but also Brendan Rodgers and Roberto Martínez.

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It would be intriguing, however, if Swansea and Monk can sustain their level of performance for the remainder of the season and Hodgson did leave. Would the FA dare to bring in someone so young? Hodgson was 64 when he was appointed. Fabio Capello was 62, Sven-Goran Eriksson 53, Bobby Robson 49 and Ron Greenwood 56. Winterbottom was 33 but the average starting age of the 13 different England managers is 49 and has been going up rather than down. Monk is seven months younger than Frank Lampard. He has managed 65 games and in some quarters his age is bound to be held against him.

All that really can be said for certain is that a new generation of English managers is coming through. Eddie Howe of Bournemouth is another one and Sean Dyche will surely return to the Premier League at some point. Monk is at the forefront and, if nothing else, they offer hope that if England’s tournament record gets no better in France next summer the team can rise from the ashes, more like a phoenix than a pheasant.

FA’s elastic code of conduct stretched to breaking

Apparently, the Football Association’s technical director, Dan Ashworth, has taken Jamie Vardy “to one side” to point out – quite possibly, it feels here, after the matter was brought to the FA’s attention by a call from the Guardian – that his recent behaviour, namely repeatedly shouting “Jap” in the direction of another gambler, broke the England players’ code of conduct.

Roy Hodgson says he has also had a word with Vardy although the England manager relayed this news as if he found it a slightly wearisome issue. “There will be questions like this coming up on a regular basis during the rest of my time as England manager,” Hodgson said. “I’ll save the dramas for the real dramas.”

Plainly, it was some ticking-off bearing in mind Vardy was then elevated straight into Hodgson’s team to face San Marino. The Leicester City striker can consider himself fortunate the FA applies such elastic rules because it does raise a couple of questions. Could you imagine a more high-profile player would have escaped so lightly? And is there any point in keeping up the pretence that the code of conduct, brought in amid great fanfare after John Terry’s racism case, actually means anything?

Gareth Bale the superstar and team man

Of everything Wales have achieved in their European Championship qualifying group, the defining image surely has to be that wonderful celebration after Gareth Bale’s late and decisive header in Cyprus. His dash to the Wales dugout, with every member of staff waiting by the touchline, and the victory scrum that followed was a measure of the togetherness that has brought Chris Coleman’s team close to qualification.

Bale is the one with superstar status but in that moment he reminded us that he still sees himself as one member of a team. Can anyone imagine Cristiano Ronaldo celebrating a goal of that magnitude the same way?