The Football Association should change its name to the Followers’ Association.

If Roy Hodgson was a Yes Man, Sam Allardyce was the No Man. The Dudley boy who refused to change with the times. Big Sam was Big Sam and nothing and nobody could stop him being Big Sam. The former England manager couldn’t change if he tried, as proven by the Telegraph scandal.

The FA knew this when they hired him, but insisted on someone who could handle the media. As it turned out, the media had him out in record time.

I was ecstatic when Allardyce was appointed to the England job, because at this stage the national team needs nothing more than someone who can manage resources and instil a siege mentality.

I wanted clean sheets. I wanted tactical fouls. I wanted to go to tournaments, beat the best teams and hear them say it was unfair. I wanted a Machiavellian team that preferred to be feared than loved. I thought the FA wanted the same thing.

If they didn’t then why did they come up with the ridiculous England DNA (“England teams aim to dominate possession intelligently, selecting the right moments to progress the play and penetrate the opposition,” says the FA website), force Roy Hodgson to devote himself slavishly to it when even he probably wasn’t convinced and then replace him with a man who would ensure the team did the exact opposite? Because for one brief, shining moment they wanted to win no matter the cost.

But it didn’t last because as soon as Big Sam opened his big mouth like everyone knew he would, they did what they always do. They did the ‘right’ thing.

Well done FA, everyone is very proud of you.

Apart from nobody is proud of you. Half the country thinks you’re weak and the other half is just delighted Allardyce is gone but hasn’t gained the slightest bit of respect for English football’s governing body as a result of its handling of the process.

As for the rest of the world, it’s best not to go into that. If anyone even realises the England team still exists then it’s only because we’re a laughing stock. The country that invented football but has no idea how to play it.

We talk about not showing weakness in front of FIFA, but nobody gives a damn what the English FA thinks. We wanted Prince Ali as FIFA President, everyone else voted for Sepp Blatter (until the USA, a football nation that actually matters in this brave new world, got rid of him). We voted for Michael van Praag in the recent UEFA presidential elections, rival Aleksander Ceferin won in a landslide. That’s how far our moral grandstanding gets us.

Let’s take a step back and remember how the England team first set out on this disastrous course that led to the nightmare in Nice against Iceland.

In the midst of the John Terry racism storm, the FA demanded manager Fabio Capello dropped the defender as captain. Capello rightly responded that only the manager should pick the captain, not a bunch of bureaucrats. As a consequence, he was swiftly axed and replaced with Roy Hodgson.

Even if it is understandable that the FA wanted to avoid at all costs having a captain and national figure associated with racism, they then went and did something that no other football association in the world would do.

After a court of law found Terry not guilty of racial abuse, they set up a kangaroo court to find him guilty and throw him to the lions regardless.

While it is almost certain that John Terry did racially abuse Anton Ferdinand, surely the FA should have had the confidence to enforce its own rules and hand down a suspension before the court case. But the path of least resistance does not respect due process.

They made it impossible for Terry to ever return to the England team and without a man who, even at 35, is still the country’s best defender, a generation of centre-backs were deprived of the opportunity to learn from the best. We became a shambles, a team that can’t even defend a long throw from Iceland. Hello, once upon a time we taught the world to score goals like that and they sneered at us. Now it’s the other way around.

To put into perspective the ridiculous extent of our self-righteousness, look at it this way. If Luis Suarez was English, it is highly likely that we would refuse to pick him.

The Daily Telegraph sting on Allardyce was the FA’s big chance to prove that this time things would be different. That they would stand by their own decision to hire a loose cannon like Sam Allardyce. Had they decided to keep their man on, albeit with a final warning, many would have been relieved to see a belated FA show of strength, and potentially the birth of a football governing body that won’t be pushed around by anyone.

If they had stuck with Allardyce, they would have also found that, in a few weeks, the media and the public would have forgotten about this and started focusing on the only thing that matters to everyone other than the FA – results.

With Allardyce out the door, attention, albeit waning with every manager that comes and goes, turns to who should replace him. There certainly seems to be a bizarre list of favoured candidates.

Eddie Howe is the antithesis of Allardyce, suited to a long-term project rather than short-term tournament football. To hire him would prove once and for all that the FA didn’t know themselves why they hired Big Sam. Gareth Southgate would be kicking the problem into the long grass and Alan Pardew has failed with just as many clubs as he has enjoyed success with.

Jurgen Klinsmann did a good job with Germany before his assistant and successor Joachim Loew turned out to be far better, and the former Spurs man is unloved in his current role with the United States.

There is one appointment that the FA could make that would show there was at least an iota of rational thinking behind the decision to hire Allardyce, but it wouldn’t be a popular appointment. Tony Pulis is as good as it gets at bringing instant results to struggling teams, which is exactly what England are at the moment, and bloodying the noses of far more talented opponents while he’s at it.

But could we really stomach the indignity of a Welshman taking over the firefighting job that many still don’t even believe needs to be done? I say we can and we must.