Steve McClaren expects to be back in top-level management in 2008 and he will be taking his brolly with him. He has enough to choose from. Two days after he lost his job as England head coach, umbrellas started arriving from friends. “I’ve got hundreds of them,” he said. “Enough to start a shop.”

He hopes not to be talking about umbrellas for the rest of his life, but in his first interview since being dismissed by the FA, the subject can hardly be avoided. So what was he doing sheltering under a brolly on the biggest night of his career? Was it to protect his thinning hair from the rain? Was it to shield him from an angry crowd as England failed to qualify for Euro 2008?

“I wanted to stay detached and I always like to take notes,” he said. “It was lashing down and the only way I could write was to have some protection over me, so that’s why I had it. I’d never needed a brolly before because I’ve always had a dugout or a directors’ box or somewhere covered, like at the front of the tunnel.”

Aside from raising questions about how the FA could spend £757 million on Wembley Stadium and skimp on the dugouts, it has to be asked whether McClaren would do it again, given the deluge of “wally with the brolly” headlines.

“If the circumstances were the same and I needed a brolly on the touchline, well, you have to be your own person,” he said. “I don’t care. It doesn’t take away my managerial abilities. I’m judged on results, not on what tie am I wearing today and how’s my hair and how’s my look. A lot of people talked about that when I first took the job and I found that laughable. Then there was the stuff about my entourage and that was ridiculous as well.

“I could have worn a woolly hat, an England cap. I’d have got soaked to the skin and looked like a drowned rat walking away from that bench and that would have been the depiction of the England manager. So if I had to take notes in the rain, I would do the same again, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly, knowing that I need to keep focused and detached and keep these things in my mind.”

The umbrella put away, we could turn to the real business of what lies next for McClaren. “All my career has been upwards,” he said, pointing towards the ceiling of the Dorchester Hotel in Central London. “For the first time in my life I am out of work.”

Previous England managers have been so damaged by failure that their careers, and characters, have been permanently scarred. Kevin Keegan lost his bounce. Glenn Hoddle’s career went into an unstoppable decline. But McClaren shows no signs of being haunted or depressed. Far from it.

“If the England job was offered to me tomorrow, I’d take it,” he said. “It is a great job. The 18 months were a fantastic experience. There is bound to be a feeling of unfinished business with England for me.”

A return to Soho Square any time soon can be discounted, so where, at 46, will he resurface? Once ahead of Harry Redknapp as a prospective Newcastle United manager, he is down the list. Will he be forced to drop down a division, like Graham Taylor, the previous England manager to fail to qualify for a leading tournament? Will he head abroad?

“I think I can go into the level I was before,” he said. “I’ve worked with England, Manchester United. I’ve won a trophy and had European football with Middlesbrough. I’ve been working with top players, at Premiership level, for many years.”

He will tell potential employers that he is a better manager for his 18 months with England, that he has learnt from the adversity. He may be right, but there was also a lesson for the FA that the England job is too big, and the stakes too high, for it to be a finishing school. It is not necessarily an old man’s job, but McClaren does not dispute that Fabio Capello, at 61, fits the ideal profile.

“I don’t regret getting that opportunity,” McClaren said. “I thought I was ready. I knew it would take time. I ran out of it. Maybe it does take someone with more experience and now you’ve got Capello. He is probably the right age to take the job. I don’t care if it is an alien from outer space with three heads who is manager if they are successful.”

A more experienced man, or someone more certain of himself, might have been more interventionist in the last two qualifying matches, when England lost in Russia and, fatefully, at home to Croatia. McClaren’s instincts were often right, but change came too late in Moscow and Owen Hargreaves should have been introduced as soon as England had clawed back to 2-2 against Croatia.

“I’ve not just thought about one decision, but hundreds,” McClaren said. “I was just about to put Hargreaves on. I was standing right behind the shot [that put Croatia 3-2 ahead] and straightaway that has gone out of the window. One thing I have learnt is making subs too early, especially when you are closing down a game. I have no regrets about what we did.”

Pushed on that, he wishes that he had been openly critical of the plastic pitch in Moscow. He was not because he did not want to sow doubts in the players’ minds. “But I thought it was ridiculous,” he said. “One team had ten days’ preparation and we had half an hour. Our normal ball retention is 85 per cent. On that plastic we achieved 75 per cent and there were some individuals way below that. It had a big effect on our technique and our passing.”

He quickly added that he was not seeking to make excuses, that he bears responsibility for the England players being on a beach this summer.

Turning to the future, McClaren will head to a coaches’ seminar in Baltimore in the United States, work with children in South Africa and travel around Europe watching players while he waits for the phone to ring.

“What I want to be is ready for the next challenge,” he said. “That is something that Sven [Göran Eriksson] did very well in his year out of the game. He identified the players he would want when he got another job.

“I take massive heart from Sven and the way he’s bounced back [at Manchester City]. I had great success previously and I know that I am not a bad manager. I got the England job because of my qualities. Those qualities, I believe, have been enhanced.

“Will it haunt me? It will always be there. But everybody’s failings are always there. There are a lot of very successful people who have had a million failures before they succeeded. They’ve had to rebuild. I know how to manage, I’ve been successful and I know I can do it again.”

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