Michael Walker talks to Tord Grip about the recent crisis at FA headquarters and England's progress under the Swedish management team

Just as he does every day when he wakes up in London and not some other European city, Tord Grip went on his morning constitutional in Hyde Park yesterday. He had spent Tuesday night in Basle after watching Liverpool and Wednesday night in Rotterdam after watching Newcastle United, and the 64-year-old England coach was keen to get his bad back loosened and his heart pumping again after so much time spent travelling and sitting.

Grip, though, was grateful not just for the exercise but also the venue. As he admitted, there was a time over the past fortnight of turmoil at the Football Association when he thought that mornings in Hyde Park may not be part of his daily regime any more.

Like his younger colleague and close friend, the England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, Grip is a softly-spoken Swede not given to revelation. But asked if, during the political infighting that cost the FA chief executive Adam Crozier his job, there was ever a moment when he thought Eriksson and himself might also be part of England's history, he replied: "Yeah, that's right. There was."

Grip would not add detail, but his response confirms the impression from one voice at the FA who thought the chances of Eriksson and Grip resigning on Monday were "50/50".

That was before their meeting with three of the FA's board of directors - David Dein, Peter Ridsdale and Dave Richards - and, as Eriksson explained on Monday after the meeting, he and Grip received the assurances they were seeking. These were principally about friendlies and the FA hierarchy, and both men were content with the temporary appointment of David Davies as one of two men to replace Crozier.

"It was rather short, but okay," Grip said of the meeting he attended beside Eriksson. "We had been speaking to David Davies beforehand. We wanted to know what was going to happen; we needed to know, of course, who we should talk to. Adam was the one we asked if we wanted to do something. He was always very positive."

Despite the uncertainty of the situation, Grip said he and Eriksson were determined to be as positive as they could. But there must have been a thought that Monday might be their last day?

"First of all, it is all about Sven," Grip replied. "I don't know what he thought because we didn't have time to talk that much. We didn't discuss before the meeting what might happen after it. And you have to be open; if you go in with a certain mind then . . . I'm his assistant and he has to decide what to do. He finally felt that, okay, we will go on; if the new people in the FA are telling us they have confidence in us we will carry on.

"We were both disappointed (about Crozier), but Adam told us to wait and see these people and make a decision then, after that. That was good. I feel okay again and I think Sven does the same. We wanted to listen to them and it was okay. We are looking forward to next week and looking forward to trying to qualify for Euro 2004."

Had it been more, or less, damaging and destabilising than the circus surrounding Eriksson's private life?

"I don't know because we don't talk a lot about private matters," Grip said.

The look on his face said that prying further would not be welcome, which was little surprise. Grip seems phlegmatic first and foremost, a calm acquired over decades in the game.

"These things are part of football," he said, "and I have enjoyed every day here since I first came. England is a football country. Spanish football is very good to watch, but in England matches are getting there."

WHETHER England are under Grip and Eriksson is another question. The last two performances, against Slovakia in Bratislava and Macedonia in Southampton, were sloppy. As England's previous competitive international was against Brazil in the World Cup quarter-final, there has been growing criticism focusing on whether Eriksson's England have developed a coherent pattern or a personality. Grip declined to state England's achievements under Eriksson - "I think the players remember" - and instead addressed the criticism because "sometimes you have to take it".

So he answered "yeah, perhaps" to a point about a lack of leadership in Slovakia and repeatedly mentioned discipline in terms of both recent games and the Brazil match. "Even against so-called smaller teams we have to be disciplined," he said.

"We have to look back to the Argentina game when we were very disciplined, very well organised. Against Brazil (in the first half) we played as we did against Argentina. I think it (Argentina) was our best game since Sven and I came; I think it was better than the Germany game because of the discipline and the organisation. It was terrific. Against Macedonia we needed to be that and for a while we were."

But despite creating a lot at St Mary's Stadium, England lost their organisation, particularly in the second half. Post-interval shapelessness is not new to this England, though what has been overlooked is the discipline and economy with which England played those first 44 minutes against Brazil. Then David Beckham missed a touchline tackle he would have made had he been fit. Seconds later, Rivaldo was curling the ball past David Seaman.

"We started like that (with discipline) against Brazil and it was good until that last minute. I think in all the second halves we struggled, except against Argentina. But there we played in a stadium that was not that warm. We really did struggle in the heat. That was part of the feedback from all the players. Drinking water is so important, but if you're not used to it then even that is not easy. The players don't believe it until they have the experience of it. I have experience of the 1994 World Cup. We (Sweden) played Saudi Arabia at noon in 40 degrees and we won all of our second halves. One of the reasons was we were prepared. The Swedish team in Japan did that as well. They had a bottle of water with them always. You must have that mentality, it's a habit."

For some that does not adequately explain England's lack of urgency against Brazil, but for Grip it does. "English football is exciting. You try to win the ball, win it back and to play it forward. But in a climate like Japan you can't do that. You can't try to win the ball back everywhere, you have to sit back and be patient. Of course when we had 11 against 10 we could have tried to win it earlier, but I don't think we had the physical condition to do it. I think we were a little burned out."

Burn-out is a condition that has affected two important players Grip has watched this week, Liverpool's Steven Gerrard and Newcastle's Kieron Dyer.

"Obviously not in the best form, but we have no doubts," Grip said of Gerrard. "Feyenoord was the best performance I've seen from him for a while," he said of Dyer.

It is, as Grip said, "all about being 100 per cent".

Guardian Service