ROY: I’M SO PROUD
PREMIER LEAGUE Hodgson happy with his record
LEROY ROSENIOR DAVE BASSETT
“The four years, especially the last two years after the World Cup, fashioning a team from a young group of players, many of whom weren’t even in their club sides, and playing the sort of football we were capable of... we were playing very, very well.
“I am very proud of that achievement. I think it is probably the best work, in many ways, that I did or have done so far.
“I believe people who work within the game and inside sport realise what I did. I got all sorts of messages, from all sorts of important friends and acquaintances. So there was never any doubt.
“In fact, if anything, I think the experience makes you stronger.
“In football, however well you think you are doing, however well your life is going, there is always a mugger lurking in the shadows to bash you over the head when you least expect it.”
Yesterday there was no shortage of people ready to lay into Hodgson on social media after it became clear he is the man Palace have turned to following Frank de Boer’s sacking.
But with his Premier League track record at Fulham and West Brom, despite an unhappy spell at Liverpool, he will be hoping he still has the resilience to beat off the critics looking to pounce. KEVIN CULLIS PAUL HART
ROY HODGSON will take charge of Crystal Palace with his head held high.
At 70, the former England boss is seen as yesterday’s man by many, especially after the embarrassing way his side crashed out of Euro 2016 at the hands of Iceland.
But what better place for Croydonborn Hodgson to find redemption than at Palace, the club where he started as a youth-team player but never made it into the first team?
Late last year I met Hodgson in Richmond, west London, to interview him. Even then it was clear he was desperate for a return to frontline management.
Hodgson said: “I’ve never regarded myself as a celebrity. I have regarded myself as a professional football manager, a job which I have done for many years and think I do well. I’m quite proud of my achievements.”
Whether he likes it or not, though, the 2-1 defeat by Iceland, which saw England knocked out of the European Championship and ended his reign as manager, will remain a defining moment of his career.
“I certainly didn’t feel suicidal and I certainly didn’t feel self-doubt either,” he said. STEVE COPPELL