SAM Allardyce is a step nearer fulfilling his ambition to manage England.

The Wanderers manager, already the people's choice, has been installed as the bookies' favourite to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson.

The Football Association announced on Monday night (Jan 23) that Eriksson will stand down as head coach after the World Cup, following a day of meetings at Soho Square.

The surprise development immediately sparked a guessing game over who will succeed the Swede with Allardyce dominating the polls.

Ladbroke installed him as 5-2 favourite ahead of his nearest rivals, Charlton manager Alan Curbishley and Middlesbrough's Steve McLaren.

Dutchman, Guus Hiddink, and the German, Ottmar Hitzfeld, are among the leading foreign coaches being linked, but the FA will be under pressure to appoint an Englishman, and Allardyce's success over the last six years, makes him the prime candidate.

He says he would consider it an honour just to be interviewed.

He said at the weekend: "In the early days I looked at the England job as a poisoned chalice, but as you get more experience and listen to the men who have been England coach, just to be linked with it, or one day have the opportunity to be interviewed, is one of the best honours you could have in life."

Although committed to Wanderers, now established as a Premiership force and in Europe for the first time, he would jump at the chance if the FA came calling.

And his chairman, Phil Gartside, a member of the FA Board, would not stand in his way.

The dramatic developments at the FA came on the day Newcastle chairman, Freddy Shepherd, refused to bow to pressure to sack Graeme Souness. Nevertheless, Souness is on borrowed time on Tyneside with Allardyce favourite to step in when he eventually goes.

For now it is all just speculation, but Wanderers fans have genuine concerns that they will lose the man they adored as a player and revere as a manager.