Football Association chief executive Adam Crozier insisted Sven-Goran Eriksson was not taking over as England coach this week as a ''failure'' as he appealed for the country to unite behind him.

Eriksson resigned as Lazio boss yesterday in the wake of a poor run of results which has seen the Italian side fall 11 points off the pace in Serie A and struggle in their Champions League group.

At an added cost of about £1m to the FA in wages, but no compensation payable to Lazio, he is set to take over as England coach in time to watch his first Premiership game on Saturday.

He he will now definitely be in charge of England's friendly against Spain next month, as well as the World Cup qualifiers against Finland and Albania in May.

Crozier greeted the news with ''relief and excitement'' as England had been ''treading water for the past couple of months'' amid uncertainty over Eriksson's start date ever since news of his appointment on October 31 last year.

Crozier made it clear that although England had struggled for many years, they now had ''one of the best management teams in the world'' and he expected the players to contribute to an upturn in the national side's fortunes.

Pulling together was a theme developed by Crozier as he attempted to ensure Eriksson did not walk into a wall of opposition from those either opposed to an overseas coach or doubting his credentials.

The first signs of that came when bookmakers issued odds of 7-1 that the 52-year-old Swede would be gone by the turn of the year.

But Crozier declared: ''Without doubt he is one of the top three or four managers in the world.

''We do not look at him as a failure at all. His managerial record over a long period of time is second to none and anyone looking at just the past nine weeks is pretty daft.

''Lazio are fifth in Serie A, are in the second stage of the Champions League, they won the title last season and he has won trophies in Sweden, Italy and Portugal.

''Short-term thinking has given us six full-time England managers in the past ten years. That is quite extraordinary for a national side.

''Every time we have begun to get somewhere, we have almost instantly fallen back, which is why we are talking about the need for consistency and continuity like France have had.''

Crozier was keen to stress that Eriksson was part of an England management team including Leicester boss Peter Taylor and Manchester United's Steve McClaren as well as Tord Grip.

''The important thing for everyone is to unite behind them.

''You never find a candidate that everyone thinks is the right one. We have to get behind them and stick with them now.''

If that was not enough to appeal to those still pining for Terry Venables, Crozier attempted to further relieve the expectations on Eriksson by stressing just how hard a job he actually faced.

''He has been at the highest level for long enough to know that the most important things are results and he knows that most people will give him a chance,'' added the Scot.

''But this is not an easy job to go into with the results we have had and the expectations that exist in this country.

''We do need to get a bit of recognition about the situation we're in here.

''We are bottom of our World Cup qualifying group. We haven't looked like winning a major tournament for a long time and we have a lot of work to do in the short-term and long-term.'