Hudson’s helpers departed ages ago
OPINION: Peter Taylor hasn’t worked with the All Whites squad since the Confederations Cup in June.
He wasn’t in the camp before the Oceania World Cup qualifying final against the Solomon Islands in September and he wasn’t in the camp before the friendly against Japan in October.
Why is the whereabouts of a former assistant coach relevant now?
Well, some have suggested it’s all one big mystery, which wasn’t aided when All Whites defender Tommy Smith played a straight bat to questions about Taylor’s location on Wednesday.
‘‘That’s over to the gaffer and he picks and chooses his staff. That’s not something we concern ourselves too much with. We are just concentrating as players on being in the best shape possible for the match.’’
In reality, Taylor’s main job was to keep tabs and interact with the England-based members of the squad and offer advice to Hudson.
That became more difficult when he took a job as director of football with Gillingham in May (he has since resigned in October), so he left the All Whites setup after the Confederations Cup.
Taylor was present at a camp in Wellington in March before a qualifier against Fiji, but that was because regular assistant Darren Bazeley was busy preparing the under-20s for their World Cup in May.
In an odd twist, Alex Armstrong, whose job Taylor had essentially taken when he was appointed in September 2016, was also brought back into the fold for that window and worked up until the Solomon Islands games, before returning to his fulltime job as assistant coach of Barnet in England’s League Two.
Maybe it would have been prudent for New Zealand Football to put out a statement to say both were no longer involved to avoid it popping up now, but at the end of the day, all this talk is about assistant coaches, and not even the main assistant coaches (that has fallen to Bazeley since May).
Sure, Taylor is a big name to diehard football fans, but his involvement in camps was negligible.
Hudson is a pretty hands-on coach, only really needing one fully-fledged assistant to run his sessions.
What was a lot more intriguing was suggestions of tension around the camp, notably between Hudson and New Zealand Football chief executive Andy Martin.
It’s not the first time this has surfaced, and it is understood all has not been rosy between the powerful duo at times.
Martin and a New Zealand Football spokesman have both denied that. Words like nonsense and hearsay were used to describe the claims. Martin said last month he has a good relationship with Hudson.
Hudson will be asked to address it at his pre-match press conference on Friday, as well as the whys and what-fors of his two former assistants moving on.
Expect a Kane Williamsonesque forward defence to be played, and with good reason.
It will be one day before the first of two of the biggest matches in his fledgling management career and you could forgive him for wanting to talk about that, rather than Taylor, Armstrong and Martin.
And in case you were wondering where Taylor is, well, he was photographed last Thursday running a coaching session at his boyhood club, Canvey Island FC, who play in the eighth tier of English football.