If José Mourinho turns down the chance to manage England, was he just playing the country along all the time? We will never know.

We will never know what would have happened had Brian Barwick, the FA chief executive, not turned the selection procedure into another round of paralysis by analysis. Never know what would have resulted had he jumped on a flight to Portugal on the day he sacked Steve McClaren to sound out the most outstanding candidate for the job. We will never know whether Mourinho might have been swept off his feet, had Barwick not chosen instead to canvas opinions from Helsinki to Heidelberg, only to reach the stunning conclusion that Mourinho, as well as Fabio Capello, Marcello Lippi, Jürgen Klinsmann and Martin O’Neill, knows a bit about football.

Barwick is a lucky man because several outstanding candidates - indeed, some of the most successful managers in the European game - are unemployed, so whoever he appoints should have the right credentials. But if he misses out on Mourinho, whose track record, knowledge of English football and command of the language combine to put him above the rest, what will it say about the inertia that has gripped Soho Square since the initial rush to get rid of McClaren?

It is claimed that Barwick has been busy since that date. Busy doing nothing, as the song goes. The 12-man panel of advisers is little more than decoration, a way for the FA to be seen to be taking the process very seriously indeed, while spreading the responsibility if it all goes wrong.

This brains trust has not thrown up one name that a punter with a sense of ambition would not have provided, given ten seconds’ thinking time. Before their team’s match against Arsenal on Wednesday, if you had asked the Newcastle United fans who they would want to succeed Sam Allardyce, they would have told you: Mourinho, Capello, Lippi, Klinsmann or O’Neill.

Barwick’s dithering has given Mourinho enough opportunity to be in and out more times than your left leg at a hokey-cokey party and if the chase ends in disappointment we will still be none the wiser. The cynics will claim that Mourinho was always leading England on, that his true aim was to land a plum job in club football, and that he used the FA as a negotiating tool. On attracting the first hint of a smile from the owners of AC Milan, he dropped Barwick like a rebound boyfriend at the prom.

Yet who can say what would have developed had Barwick been decisive? The clamour to persuade Mourinho to manage England has been running for almost three weeks. That is plenty of time for a club suitor to get its act together, see what was about to happen and make its move. And, unlike Barwick, the Italians will not have wasted too many hours seeking the counsel of Graham Taylor. If Mourinho turns England down, put simply, Barwick blew it. He blew it because he did not find out on day one whether the best man for the job was interested, which should have been a greater priority than pumping Roy Hodgson for information.

Barwick fondly imagines himself to be rerunning the fable of the hare and the tortoise. Slow and steady wins the race, he thinks. If the prime candidate disappears over the horizon, however, never to be seen again, what can Barwick possibly believe that English football has won?

Dowd’s video nasty

We hear it every week. Referees need our support, referees have a split second to make a decision, referees have the hardest job in football. Not when they are given the benefit of a television replay they don’t. Not when they can sit down and review an incident frame by frame over a cup of tea. In fact, Phil Dowd had it easy when he was required to cast an eye over his decision to show a red card to Robbie Keane, the Tottenham Hotspur captain, eight days ago. Study the incident again and come to the same conclusion as the rest of the country (including former professional referees, such as Graham Poll) that Keane was overzealous and his tackle warranted a yellow card, if that. Dowd did not. He stuck by his original call, so Keane is serving an undeserved three-match ban.

Meanwhile, as Poll said at the weekend, seriously bad tackles are in vogue again. Nine days ago, John Carew, of Aston Villa, kicked the best player on the pitch, Alexander Hleb, of Arsenal, out of the game at Villa Park. Hleb has not played since, while Carew was on the field on Saturday, chopping down Sol Campbell, of Portsmouth, after four minutes.

Part of the problem is that many referees are incapable of identifying a truly nasty foul. And, with stubborn fools such as Dowd, giving them all the time in the world does not seem to help, either.

Ridsdale an old woman

Cardiff City are hovering on the brink of administration. “If it would solve the problem I’d go tomorrow,” Peter Ridsdale, the chairman, said. “But this isn’t about me.” It never is. He is like an old woman driver who has never had an accident. Seen hundreds, though.

Radcliffe rights wrongs

Paula Radcliffe said that she was disturbed to hear the details of one of the drugs tests missed by Christine Ohuruogu. She did not know that on the second of her three strikes she was given an hour to get across London by the testers and did not make the attempt. “It was the first time I had read about it and it surprised me,” Radcliffe said. “It was disappointing. I think most athletes’ response would be to do as much as they could.”

Yet the general response from within athletics to public criticism of Ohuruogu has been to blame a conspiracy of football writers for whipping up a negative campaign. So how many of Ohuruogu’s other supporters have boldly manned the barricades on her behalf without having the slightest clue what really went on?

Charlton gets shirty

A friend has one of my most loved books. It is a battered old collection of articles by the late Alan Coren, published in Punch in the 1970s. Coren is my favourite writer. Go out and find just about anything from his heyday. The Sanity Inspector, Golfing For Cats, The Lady From Stalingrad Mansions, Bumf, Tissues For Men, The Rhinestone As Big As The Ritz, The Cricklewood Diet. Genius on every page. Britain has never produced a funnier writer and probably never will. I digress.

My mate still has my book and, if he is reading this, maybe he will take the hint. It is only a tatty paperback, though. Easy to forget. He probably has no idea of the significance of the space it has left on my shelves.

Then there is the small matter of Jack Charlton’s World Cup final shirt, returned to him this week 14 years after he lent it to a friend for a fancy-dress party. It was found at the bottom of a drawer during a clear-out.

Charlton must be a very patient man, is all I can say. If that had been my 1966 memento, mate or no mate, I think we would be rowing.

Chelsea left impotent

Didier Drogba, the Chelsea striker, could be out until February. See how much sexy football they get from Avram Grant now.

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• Graham Spiers