How Leeds got their man

Angel told Standard Sport: "It was probably the most straightforward deal either one of use have ever done."

That fact is unusual for Venables whose career as a football manager has been complicated by financial details. A last chance to win the prize that's always eluded him seems to have simplified the situation this time, luring him from the safety of the TV studio to the maelstrom of the Premiership game.

Leeds United, one of the great under achievers of modern football, are the latest club to entrust their future happiness to the much-travelled 59-year-old former England coach.

His CV embraces Spurs, QPR, Crystal Palace, Barcelona, Portsmouth, Middlesbrough and now Leeds United.

In between, he's been coach of Australia and, most famously, of England. In the 1996 European Championship, his team were a penalty kick away from the Final.

Sadly, Venables had just two years in charge of the England team. His attempts to mix a unique talent for coaching with a questionable grasp of the business world created a fall-out during his time at Tottenham that remains with him to this day.

Pending court cases meant that he couldn't devote the time required to the England job and in January 1996 he announced that he would resign after the European Championships that summer. Since then, the High Court has banned him from holding company directorships for seven years.

None of this harmed his reputation as a football coach where his true talent lay. He was the only player to win a complete set of England caps from amateur and youth levels up to senior level and, when he finally retired in 1976, a bright inquiring mind meant that he was ideal coaching material

In club football, his greatest achievement came in Spain where, in his first season at Barcelona, he ended 11 years of frustration and led them to the title. In 1987 he moved to Spurs - a relationship that was to end in bitterness and recrimination in a court battle with Sir Alan Sugar. Although his Tottenham team finished third in 1990, with Paul Gascoigne and Gary Lineker in their pomp, they were never quite good enough to win the Championship title.

Can Leeds United now provide him with the resources and motivation to satisfy this one last ambition?

When I spoke to him last week, he gave me the impression that such matters were unlikely to trouble him again. "I'm on holiday, I've not spoken to Leeds or anyone else and I don't have any plan to," he said. "I'm enjoying my life at the moment."

It's a big job, but Venables is a big personality. There's no doubt that he has the tactical acumen, though the Premiership is largely uncharted territory for him. It's become a faster, more intense game in the decade he's been away, though the learning curve proved no problem during his brief spell at Middlesbrough.

Called in to help Bryan Robson in 2000, he steered Middlesbrough to an 11-match unbeaten run and Premiership survival. They wanted to make the appointment permanent, but Venables chose the more comfortable option of his TV career.

Now, I expect Venables to have an immediate impact on the playing staff at Elland Road.

The way Venables drew the best from the wayward Gascoigne suggests that he may try a similar fatherly approach to Lee Bowyer and Jonathan Woodgate, the two Leeds United players charged with assault last year.

One of his first tasks as manager will be deciding whether to retain Bowyer, who wants to move, and Rio Ferdinand, persistently linked with a transfer to Manchester United.

Venables has a squad worth at least £100 million and the managerial qualities needed to make a success of this job. But there are no guarantees. Recent stopovers at Portsmouth and Crystal Palace were disastrous and his bid to take Australia to the 1998 World Cup failed at the final, critical hurdle against Iran.

But you can't keep him down. One thing is sure, his success with England in 1996 gave him folk hero status and he will be an enormously popular figure in next season's Premiership title race. We need someone to spice up the annual head-to-head between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger.

Whether he can become the first Englishman to win the Premiership title since one of his Leeds United predecessors, Howard Wilkinson, in 1992, remains to be seen.

I'd love to see it happen, but I suspect that the Scotsman and the Frenchman might have something to say on the matter.