Hero Jonno will be England manager

It was revealed yesterday that the World Cup-winning captain was going to meet the RFU's director of elite rugby, Rob Andrew, to discuss the future direction of the England team.

Today's talks were, it now appears, instigated by Johnson and not Andrew. The former second row had always said in the past that he could not work with the current hierarchy at Twickenham but has changed his mind.

As a result, Johnson will be offered the chance to become team manager and his appointment will be rubber-stamped by the end of May.

The ramifications for Ashton are enormous as he had been told by Andrew that he will have the final say over who becomes team manager.

That will not now happen and Ashton will have to decide if he can work in tandem with an icon of the English game who will have an input into selection - something the head coach insists is not part of the team manager's role.

Andrew, who has indicated that he wants Ashton to continue, clearly now has a lot of explaining to do - starting with the coach himself.

That will have to be done by telephone from Andrew's holiday in Greece, which was due to start tomorrow.

His imminent departure for the sun has seen the meeting with Johnson pushed forward to today and means that Ashton is yet to be involved in the discussions with the former Leicester Tigers skipper.

There is now also a possibility that Andrew will not return to Twickenham in time for the next management board meeting on Wednesday.

The Club England committee - who make up the "playing" part of the board - will back Andrew's decision to opt for Johnson and Ashton but there are members of the "management" side of the board who want Ashton out.

By aligning Johnson with Ashton - if the head coach agrees to the partnership - Andrew will be offering a carrot to those who want the head coach out.

It is doubtful they would be willing to break up a potentially successful alliance of one of England's most popular players and a head coach who finished runner up in the World Cup and second in the Six Nations championship.

The imminent arrival of the new "deal" between the English Premiership clubs and the RFU over player release in July creates a totally new system for the national squad and the presence of Johnson will be seen as a key element in taking England on the road to success at the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.

Ashton has always wanted a team manager to help with the many of the off-the-field aspects of his job, including fronting press conferences and dealing with disciplinary issues such as Danny Cipriani's infamous late-night visit to a London night club.

Under the planned management structure, it would have been Johnson who announced the action against the player and dealt with the media reaction.