After Kevin Keegan, enter Ikea man. Sven-Goran Eriksson breezed into a Hertfordshire hotel yesterday to offer England several flat packs of platitudes but no promises, apart from saying that this time he would actually stay to do the job. It was something that needed getting straight, given that the 52-year-old Swede had previously agreed to manage Blackburn Rovers, only to join Lazio.

"Yes, I did sign a contract with Blackburn," Eriksson explained yesterday, "but when I got back to Genoa (where he had been managing Sampdoria) Lazio phoned me and asked me to go there.

"I went back to Blackburn and had a couple of days' discussions with Mr Jack Walker. He released me from my contract and told me he understood my decision. It is not very nice to break contracts, but we parted like friends. He was a great gentleman."

The English Football Association, having agreed a five-year, £10 million sterling contract with Eriksson to rebuild, reinvigorate and perhaps reinvent the England team, trusts that the acquaintanceship will be slightly longer-lasting.

"It will not happen again," Eriksson pledged, whereupon a voice from the floor murmured: "Germany calls . . ."

"Not even if Brazil calls," said Eriksson.

"I'm very happy I have a contract for five years," he added, "because it means I don't have to think about just next week's game, I have to think about what is happening in three, four or five years or even longer. Yes, I think I will stay five years . . . I hope so . . . even seven, I hope."

It may take at least seven years for the country's football followers at large to accept the idea of a foreigner running the England team. Criticism of the appointment has been widely voiced by fans and club managers alike. Eriksson clearly does not want to get involved in the argument. "I can understand that every time you do a new thing, whether it's football or not, you always have people against you," he reflected. "But I don't want to take part in that discussion. I just hope that in a couple of years those talking against it will be talking for us."

England's next coach is adamant that he will not take up the post full-time until July 1st next year, after his contract with Lazio has expired. But having committed himself to England, and, given the volatile background against which he is working in Rome, he could be released earlier should Sergio Cragnotti, the president of Lazio, decide that it would be best to turn the team over to Dino Zoff, the vice-president.

Either way, Eriksson hopes he will be in a position to assist when England resume their attempt in March to qualify for the 2002 World Cup.

"I hope to finish my job in Italy in a proper way, a nice way," he said. "Maybe it would be a little difficult coming earlier for a couple of weeks, but I think it would not be the first time there was a part-time manager as national coach."

Eriksson was quite candid about his lack of an intimate knowledge of the English game. "I've been working in the Italian league for 14 years," he said, "and I haven't had either the opportunity or the need to know everything about British football."

Asked if he could name the Leicester City goalkeeper or the Sunderland left-back (a piece of trivia which might have had Keegan scurrying to the nearest Rothmans) he replied: "No, but I can assure you that I will be able to answer those questions when I come here."

At £2 million a year he will be earning twice Keegan's salary, but he insisted: "Money is not the important thing here. It's a big job, a big challenge, and I will be very proud the first time I go out and hear the national hymn . . . what do you say? . . . anthem."

With that he flew off to prepare Lazio for their next game with Bologna, when a bad result could find him humming God Save the Queen.