You do not require insider knowledge to speculate that Paul Ince will do well to last the season at Blackburn Rovers. I would not bet on the manager lasting beyond January, particularly if Roque Santa Cruz is sold.

It is easy to imagine the reaction because we saw some of it online after the story about Ince's dust-up with Joe Jordan, the Tottenham Hotspur coach, at White Hart Lane on Sunday. “Ince hasn't got it,” writes Alan from Glasgow. “Ince is in way over his head,” says R Moss.

As a hint of what is to come, it suggests that Ince could be laughed out of the Barclays Premier League months into his first season. Job-wise, he will be damaged goods in the eyes of every top-flight chairman and most of those in the division below. He will be untouchable in much the same way that John Barnes was after briefly and disastrously trying his hand in management at Celtic. And another coaching career will be over pretty much before it is started, with a guy barely into his 40s.

Barnes is returning to management eight years after his ten-month spell in Glasgow, having taken over the Jamaica national team. “I've not been out by choice,” he said.

This is how we do it in this country. We give Barnes a job at Celtic because he is pals with Kenny Dalglish. He is young and naive, promises to play like Brazil and then becomes a laughing stock when his team lose to Inverness Caledonian Thistle. Then he kicks around the media for eight years.

We promote Ince to the top division after eight good months at Macclesfield and one promising season with Milton Keynes Dons in Coca-Cola League Two. We allow the good vibes of him becoming the first black English manager in the Premier League to obscure his lack of qualifications and experience.

And then, like Barnes, we prepare to kick him out, saying that he was never up to it, and he departs bruised and battered. Not even a man who calls himself The Guv'nor has unlimited reserves of self-confidence.

The same fate may await Tony Adams who, judged rather harshly on a losing record at Wycombe Wanderers, will be written off for good if he struggles as Portsmouth manager, whatever the mitigation. This is, as Gianluca Vialli and Gabriele Marcotti noted in their excellent collaboration, The Italian Job, a “peculiarly English” way of behaving. In this instance, they do not mean it as a compliment.

They have put statistics to this English phenomenon of plucking a player, often a well known one, and giving this learner driver the keys to a Ferrari.

One of their most notable findings was that an average Serie A manager had spent seven seasons in lower-league football. His English counterpart had spent less than half that. Some, of course, have spent no time at all learning their trade.

A related statistic, which should concern Ince, demonstrates how one failure for a manager in England can prove terminal to a career. Analysing four seasons across the top two divisions, they found that 25 per cent of managers in England were given a second chance, only two per cent a third opportunity.

In Italy, double the number (50 per cent) led more than one club and the number of third chances was 21 per cent against two.

Which means? “In Italy we are far quicker to decide that a manager's stint is a failure, but we are far more reluctant to determine that the manager himself is a failure,” Vialli, the former Chelsea manager, wrote.

The same can be said of Spain where Rafael Benítez was seemingly hopeless in his early career, but the Liverpool manager kept being given another chance. The English work the other way round. “I wonder how many great managers have been lost to the English game because of this?” Vialli said.

Sam Allardyce can probably relate to the point. It is fair to wonder whether employers are judging him on years of success at Blackpool, Notts County and Bolton Wanderers or one brief period at Newcastle United where his face did not fit.

In England, we throw our managers in younger and then rush to judge. That overreaction is more pronounced when it is a famous former player and accentuated further when it involves a club in the Premier League. We focus our anger on Ince and dismiss him for being out of his depth rather than anaylsing the misplaced thinking that brought about his employment in the first place. But then that's English football for you. We don't do thinking very well.

Our production of coaches/managers is a national embarrassment. And there are any number of ways to demonstrate that beyond the need to pay Fabio Capello £6million a year.

There is no single cause, but the habit of appointing recently retired players, and then treating them with impatience, is such a blindingly obvious failing that you wonder how it can possibly keep being repeated. But it will be, time and again.

At the weekend, Albert Ferrer, the former Chelsea full back, told The Times that he wanted to start management in England. This is despite living in Spain and being Spanish. Ferrer knows that he is more likely to be given a job higher up the ladder here than in his home country. Which also explains how Gianfranco Zola came to manage West Ham United rather than starting at a club back home in Italy. And why Slaven Bilic covets a job in the Premier League. He knows that a lack of club experience is no barrier in England - and that the system of appointing well-off former players breeds a high turnover of individuals, and therefore vacancies.

Barnes did not need the money when he was sacked by Celtic. And will Ince need the hassle if he leaves Blackburn? Will Roy Keane try to prove people wrong if things turn sour at Sunderland? Having tasted the top flight will Gareth Southgate, at Middlesbrough, or Adams want to slum it in the lower leagues?

No doubt Ince will be able to find a job if he wants it badly enough (although bunking off a coaching course to play golf raises questions about his dedication). But all it takes is one high-profile disaster and these renowned names are jaundiced towards the job, and we to them.

This is no way to overcome a systemic failure to produce enough coaches of high calibre, let alone a potential successor to Capello.

But never mind; Ryan Giggs, Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher will be along soon and we can start again.

Beck back in the spotlight

Histon's match against Leeds United in the FA Cup second round is to be shown on ITV 1 on Sunday lunchtime. Which means a return to the spotlight for John Beck. Beck almost made Cambridge United members of the inaugural Premier League, which would have been a staggering achievement, but he was more famous for his gamesmanship and reviled long-ball methods.

So how have things changed at Histon, the Blue Square Premier league leaders, where Beck assists Steve Fallon, the manager, as coach. “We get called a long-ball team, and when it's said in a bad way then it does annoy me and John,” Fallon said. “It all depends on the quality of the ball forward.” Aside from raising the question of when the term “long-ball” is used in a good way, it sounds like Leeds probably need to brace themselves.