Appointing Gareth Southgate full-time will steady the damaging state of flux - what have the England got to lose?

Such managerial instability can lead to a lack of accountability, enabling players and directors to point to a ready-made excuse for under-performance

Gareth Southgate watches over the England squad during training (Getty)

There is an unwritten rule in football management which states that any club foolish enough to go through three managers in one season is likely to be relegated.

Such managerial instability not guaranteed to provide the catalyst for abject failure – Watford somehow managed to win promotion to the Premier League with four managers taking charge for at least one game during the 2013-14 season – but chaos and upheaval, both in a tactical and personality sense, does little to create the culture required to breed consistency and success.

It does, however, lead to a lack of accountability, enabling players and directors to point to a ready-made excuse for under-performance.

New manager, new formation, or new manager, different players. Out with the old and in with the new.

Whether or not the Football Association regard the England manager’s position as a special case – their ruthless parting with Sam Allardyce last month in order to protect the organisation’s reputation suggests that the job comes with the kind of moral test more in keeping with the Archbishop of Canterbury – it is clear that ongoing uncertainty and drift surround the future of Gareth Southgate and / or his successor cannot ultimately be a positive thing for the team on the pitch.

When Roy Hodgson was parachuted into the England job in May 2012, just a month before Euro 2012, following Fabio Capello’s resignation, the FA had no option but make the emergency appointment, yet Hodgson was handed a group of players forged by Capello and had no time to do little other than guide the team through four games in Poland and Ukraine.

The situation with Southgate is different. When England kick-off against Malta at Wembley in Saturday’s World Cup qualifier, the opening fixture of Russia 2018 will still be 614 days away.

614 days. It sounds a long time, and it is probably longer than most managers get in jobs nowadays, but England have already back-tracked to square one following Allardyce’s departure and the slate has been wiped clean once again ahead of Southgate’s debut as interim-manager.

The former Middlesbrough manager, elevated from his role in charge of England Under-21s, will take charge for the next four fixtures, culminating in the Wembley friendly against Spain on November 15.

From that point on, the England manager’s office at St George’s Park will be mothballed until the new man arrives to clear up the mess caused by Allardyce’s sudden exit.

The FA will not begin the recruitment process until after the Spain game, which if that is to be believed, is incredibly naïve, complacent and perhaps even arrogant.

Having only gone through the recruitment process three months ago, when settling on Allardyce as Hodgson’s replacement, do FA chief executive Martin Glenn and chairman Greg Clarke really need to rip it up and start again in order to identify the candidate who was either missed or deemed not good enough to deny Allardyce the job in July?

Clarke gets a free pass on this, having replaced Greg Dyke in the role after Allardyce’s appointment, but Glenn is coming across as the type of guy who cannot decide which pair of shoes to wear in the morning.

Maybe the plan is to wait for Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal contract to run down next summer, or hope to tempt Brendan Rodgers to cut short his sojourn with Celtic, but Rome is burning and Glenn’s determination to shelve the recruitment process for at least five weeks suggests he is doing his best impression of Emperor Nero.

What England need at this moment is the certainty of continuity and that can only come with Southgate being given the job on a permanent basis until the culmination of Russia 2018.

The team needs structure and organisation, it needs re-shaping and preparing for a major tournament, and that cannot happen properly if the manager at the World Cup – if England actually get there – does not take charge of the team until next March at the very earliest.

Decisions need to be made about Wayne Rooney’s place in the team – does he keep it, and if so, where?

Will Marcus Rashford be given the chance to become a regular up-front or down the right flank? Is Joe Hart the best choice in goal or should he be replaced?

Has the time come to build the back-four around John Stones and, if it has, surely time is required for the Manchester City defender to find the right partner and build an understanding with him?

Southgate can lay all the groundwork now, but if he is not deemed the right choice to take the job in the long-term, the new man could have differing opinions on all of the above and start again, perhaps just a year from the World Cup.

England are in a state of flux and allowing that to continue is a recipe for failure.

It could be a recipe for disaster if the likes of Slovenia or Scotland take advantage of the uncertainty over the next month by claiming valuable points from England which enable them to take charge of Group F.

Southgate is by no means the obvious choice and it is debatable as to whether he is the best choice, but the 46-year-old is hardly in a race with the stellar names of management.

So the FA should forego the indulgence of a recruitment process for a job which is, sad to say, currently on a par with managing Aston Villa in terms of its appeal to the A-Listers, and give it to Southgate.

If nothing else, it would take away one of the excuses should England return from Russia with nothing to show for their efforts once again.