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

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.

Whether or not the Football Association regard theEngland manager’s position as a special case – their ruthless parting with Sam Allardycelast 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.