'I favoured Chelsea as England boss – I could never resolve the Premier League problem'

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Former England boss Steve McClaren has admitted he deliberately favoured Chelsea players out of necessity during his short-lived stint in charge. The 64-year-old endured a disastrous spell at the Three Lions helm and was dismissed after 15 months following his failure to qualify for Euro 2008 .

Upon his appointment, McClaren took the controversial decision to axe a then-31-year-old David Beckham and instead handed John Terry the captain's armband. Moreover, he has now revealed he consciously leaned towards selecting Chelsea players ahead of certain stars from clubs such as Manchester United or Liverpool , because they were in the ascendancy and boasted a ready-made core of quality players.

Beckham eventually earned his recall to the squad, but it's perhaps telling a legend like Paul Scholes won his final cap in 2004 . Prior to England's friendly against Uruguay on Friday, McClaren addressed the divisive atmosphere while speaking to Tony Pulis and Mick McCarthy on The Managers podcast .

"Culture beats anything," he replied when asked if he felt the effects of the bigger club rivalries within England's camp. "You get a team of lads who run for each other, they'll beat anybody! They'll beat anybody. And we could never get that. There was always an air of United, Liverpool...

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"And then all of a sudden, Chelsea are coming through. And I'm looking at it, going, 'Do I go United? Do I go Liverpool? Do I go Chelsea?' And I went with Chelsea, because Beckham was kind of [on a downward trajectory]. So you could never get that culture, that togetherness.

"And when you get that togetherness....oh my god, it's so strong. It's so strong, and that culture, people running for each other...it beats anybody."

McCarthy jumped in and concurred "you won't succeed with rivalries" within the squad. He recognised that "healthy rivalries" can inject a beneficial dose of competition, but the authentic sort rooted in hostility will only serve as a hindrance.

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Setting aside such friction perhaps isn't exclusively a manager's duty and might be addressed by the players themselves. Yet it doesn't appear as though McClaren was quite capable of working out how to unite those characters.

"We pussyfooted around," he continued. "Instead of going, 'Come on, there's gotta be a bit of conflict to sort this out. Y'know, fight the two or whatever. But there was never [a direct confrontation], everyone was kind of [raises hands] just at a distance."

It's understandable why McClaren might have relied upon the likes of Terry, Frank Lampard , Joe Cole and Ashley Cole (who joined the Blues in 2006) after taking charge of England. Chelsea had just secured consecutive Premier League titles in 2006 and were unmistakably the dominant force in English football.

However, his stint provides a lesson in how relationships within national teams need to be more nuanced than their club affiliations. That supports his decision to commend Thomas Tuchel's predecessor, Gareth Southgate , for mastering this aspect of the game during his tenure as head coach.