What was it like to you walking into that job at that point?

Yeah, well, to be honest, that...

I thought that I was going to get the job at one stage when they gave it to Ericsson.

That's when I thought maybe I'll be England manager, which, of course, is something as an English coach you aspire to or dream of doing one day.

But I didn't get it then, so I thought that chance had gone.

And then when I knew Capello was, you know, I mean, maybe not going to last that long because, you know, there was a problem, wasn't there, with John Terry and Ferdinand.

And also it seemed to me that he'd run his course a bit, you know, he wasn't that desperate to stay on.

Do you think sometimes those losses though, Roy, and probably you Wayne as well, those losses or like some of those failures as a manager are important for your development as a manager?

Mm-hmm.

...

Conor Wickhams and all these guys.

They'd actually been bought and money had been spent.

So really, during the, that four y- four seasons between '17 and '21, we were lingering.

When I, when I, when I went there, we were right at the very bottom, but it was four years, really, of lingering, if you like, trying to keep the team as afloat as it could possibly being, as high as you could be, with a group of players who I really enjoyed working with, and I thought were outstanding, many of whom were much better than they're credited for.

But we weren't really able to spend the money which enabled us to break forward like happened-

You gotta be careful.

How, how, how did that transpire? Again, I think it was Bob Houghton, wasn't it?

It was Bob, yeah.

Yeah.

We'd...

Uh, he'd taken me to South Africa initially, although we split up.

He, he didn't stay very long in the club.

So I, I did most of my time there on my own, as it were.

So those things never change (overlapping dialogue)