BBC Pundit Implores FA to Secure Spurs Coach

Former England captain Alan Shearer has warned the Football Association they must act quickly to appoint a new manager, or risk failure at this summer's European Championships.

England have been managerless since Fabio Capello resigned in February, with Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp widely regarded as the favourite to assume the role.

England will play friendlies against Norway and Belgium before leaving for Euro 2012 on 6 June, and Shearer has implored the FA to reach a decision on a new national coach and put an end to the uncertainty.

"They need a manager pretty soon - actually now," Shearer told BBC Sport. "The FA should think about England rather than the other football clubs.

"The FA are in a very difficult position because if they go in with an approach then it would upset people.

"But now the time has come and so be it if they upset one or two people. Any manager coming into this role will be able to hit the ground running very, very quickly.

The FA has long maintained it will wait until the "back end of the season" to appoint a new England manager and Alex Horne, general secretary of the FA, said there would be no rush to make an appointment.

"There's definitely a list. [We] talk about it regularly," he told the BBC. "A lot of the manager's on the list are employed and we don't want to interrupt anyone's season."

Roy Hodgson and Alan Pardew have also been mentioned alongside Redknapp but Shearer remains adamant the Tottenham boss is the right man for the job.

"Just because Harry Redknapp's had a couple of bad results, doesn't make him a bad manager. I'd still absolutely, 100 per cent, go with Harry and I'm sure everyone would tell you the same story."

Meanwhile, England have dropped one place to seventh in the latest world rankings announced by FIFA on Wednesday. Portugal's rise of two spots to fifth means England drop behind Brazil, while Germany have moved up to second and Holland dropping back two spots to fourth.