Hodgson: I will not beg to keep my England job
ROY HODGSON has told FA chiefs he will not beg to keep his job after Euro 2016 and that he is perfectly happy to be judged on his record at the end of the tournament.
Hodgson, whose England team face Iceland in the last 16 tomorrow, is under pressure after dropping six players for the final group game in which England failed to win, landing themselves in a half of the draw that includes host nation France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
While admitting that he and his team deserved criticism for not taking their chances, Hodgson has defended the team’s attacking style and insisted that he is the man best suited to continue at the helm. But in a week in which it was reported that some FA chiefs were angry at the changes made for the Slovakia game, Hodgson, whose contract runs out next month, said: ‘I’m prepared to carry on if the FA want me to. If they don’t want me to then my contract will run out and that is how that will be. I’m not begging for the job.
‘I believe in what I’ve done in particular over the last couple of years. I believe in the team I’m working with and believe the team is showing such potential that it will go on and do good things. I think it can be the start of something. Certainly I know that I and my coaching staff are capable of carrying on.
‘But the FA will make the decision as to what they want to do. One hopes they will do it on their thinking and their observations and their judgment and analysis on what is happening with the national team and not because some journalist has written else something contrary to that.’
Hodgson received additional support from FA chief executive Martin Glenn last night. Referring to the reports of anger at the changes made for the Slovakia game, Glenn said: ‘I actually don’t know where these stories are coming from. It is speculation. He has our full support, he has been a great manager and we are going to do great things in this tournament.’
ROY HODGSON is in full flow, passionately defending the six changes he made against Slovakia. He pauses for breath and a journalist starts to ask a supplementary question.
But Hodgson hasn’t finished. ‘Just one second,’ he says, cutting the question short. ‘I have to go through the history first. Because otherwise, I just accept it. I accept so many nonsenses that are said to me and written that I don’t often get a chance to put things right. So I’d like to put one or two of them right.’
The public don’t often see Hodgson like this: fiery, annoyed and incisive. Under pressure, he often answers questions much better than he does when all is well.
His main point has been that switching full backs is something standard these days, given the amount of running they have to do in the modern game and is something that Mauricio Pochettino does regularly at Tottenham; that the performance of Nathaniel Clyne vindicated that change; and that Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge were part of the team which won the game in the second half against Wales, and few would have started with anyone else.
‘So really you’re bringing it down to two players that are being questioned and that is should Dele Alli and Wayne Rooney have played in place of Jordan Henderson and Jack Wilshere? So it boils down to those two,’ he argues.
‘What did you think Henderson was like?’ he asks a reporter, who thought he played well.
‘So we’re talking about one man,’ continues Hodgson. ‘And that is amusing to me because of all the players that I’ve actually had to stand up for and put my neck on the line and defend and stick my chin out and say, “I don’t care what anyone else thinks, Wayne Rooney is going to the Euros, Wayne Rooney is our captain and Wayne Rooney is going to play” . . .
‘And now we didn’t score against Slovakia despite 29 shots and 15 corners and God knows what else because Wayne Rooney didn’t play more than 30 minutes. Well, excuse me. I find it hard to go along with that line of argument that I should now regret the fact that I didn’t start with Rooney (right) or that I didn’t start with Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling, with whom if I had started and lost the game, I would have been criticised.
‘The criticism is very simple. At the end of the game you can play well or you can play badly. We won all our three preparation games (against Turkey, Australia and Portugal) and I don’t think we played particularly well in any of the three but we won them. So everyone was hunky dory and fine.
‘Here, i n my opinion, we’ve played better. I think it bodes well for the future, what we’re doing here. But we haven’t won, so therefore results are bad, so therefore we are bad. ‘That’s life. I accept it. I’m not trying to gloss over that in any way. But I can’t be as facile as to say, “Yeah, you’re right. I wish to God now we had played Wayne Rooney.” ‘Because I don’t know if we’d played Wayne Rooney the score would have been any different. It wasn’t when he came on.’ The conversation moves on to Hodgson’s future. His contract runs out at the end of this tournament. Lose to Iceland and England will be looking for a new manager on Monday night. Given the fact that his changes have contributed to the fact England are now in a half of the draw with Spain, Italy, France and Germany, even a defeat in the quarter-finals might not be enough.
There have been reports that some of the FA hierarchy were unhappy with Hodgson’s changes for the Slovakia games. His replies almost seem as if he wished to deliver a message back to the FA decisionmakers.
‘I am prepared to carry on,’ he says. ‘That is different to wanting it. I’m prepared to carry on if the FA want me to. If they don’t want me to then my contract will have run out and that is how that will be.
‘So, I’m not begging for the job. I believe in what I’ve done in particular over the last couple of years.
‘I believe in the team I am working with and believe the team are showing such potential that they will go on and do good things and if the FA want me to continue with me looking after them I will be happy to do so.’
Right now, with potentially half the tournament to go, Hodgson’s reputation hangs in the balance. He has won three games of football in 10 tournament matches now, which is demonstrably unimpressive.
But it is also true the statistics and observation underscore the fact that England are now one of the most attacking sides in this tournament, which indicates a decisive change in the way England play. Certainly it hasn’t been like that for 10 years. Unsurprisingly, Hodgson focuses on the latter interpretation, that this might be the start of something better if he continues.
‘It depends,’ he says, when that is put to him. ‘I think it can do. Certainly I know that I and my coaching staff are capable of carrying on. But the FA will make the decision as to what they want to do. One hopes they will do it on their thinking and their observations and their judgment and analysis on what is happening with the national team and not because some journalist has written something contrary to that.’ Defeat against Iceland, which would bring inevitable calls for resignation, is not an issue with which he will engage at present. ‘To be honest, I am not even contemplating going out to Iceland. I haven’t contemplated losing a game yet, I’ve had to accept two draws which I would have liked to have seen us win. So I am not contemplating anything there. As far as I’m concerned I will prepare the team for Iceland, we will do the best we can to win the game and then after the game we will either be heavily criticised because we haven’t won it or with any luck if we played well and won the game people will maybe say we played well.’
And he gives the weary sighs of a 68-year-old when asked if it is cruel to be judged on one game. ‘I am not prepared to go into that. I’ve been working for 40 years, don’t ask me those sort of questions.
‘The game is cruel. There is no correlation sometimes between how well a team have done and judgment of the result, that is something that
is part and parcel of your profession and part and parcel of my life because I deal with you and the criticism and judgments that you make. So don’t ask me to make stupid comments like that.’
In truth, he is not being judged on one game. It is the culmination of three tournaments on which Hodgson’s future will be decided. And if he had a little goodwill in the bank after a slightly better than expected (or, at least, not as embarrassing as feared) Euro 2012, those lines of credit were swiftly withdrawn after the calamitous Brazil World Cup campaign.
Hodgson’s view is that England look a much better side now than at any time between 2006 and 2014. The caveat should be that they haven’t yet played a side anywhere near as good as Italy, Uruguay or Costa Rica, the opponents who undid them in the World Cup. And they haven’t finished games off as they should.
That much, he might accept. ‘Are people writing that this team are playing badly?’ he asks. ‘Or are they saying the team should have won the games? I agree we should have won the games too. I don’t think it is great that we have dominated and not won the games.
‘If that criticism is there, I don’t think it is good we need so many chances to score a goal. I am a football coach and players would agree with me as well; if that is the criticism, we’ll have to accept it.
‘I would be a bit surprised if you said that I was getting a lot of criticism because people are saying the team are no good. That would surprise me a bit and I would try to defend that. But personally I don’t think there is anything to defend about the way the actual team have worked, the amount of effort put in and their desire to win the game, the quality of their passing and movement, the control they have had. I don’t personally see they should be criticised for that.
‘But, yes, criticise me and the team because we haven’t won, by all means. There is nothing we can do about that. That is a fair criticism and we’ll try to put it right by winning the next one. I’m happy with the work the strikers are doing. I’m just unhappy that the dominance is not leading to the goals and obviously we have to be better in that area and everyone knows it because if we don’t score goals we can’t continue in the competition. It’s no good.
‘You don’t get prizes for possession; you don’t get prizes for the most corners; you don’t get prizes for having the best of the play. You get prizes if you win. Really, our performance against Wales was no better than our performance against Slovakia or Russia.
‘Arguably in many areas it perhaps wasn’t even as good. But we won, so that was a great game and the other two were bad games. That’s how it is. We know that. And now it’s very simple. If we don’t win now, we go home. So we had better start making sure we score our goalscoring chances.’
They better had. Another unexpected European exit is hopefully not on the agenda on Monday. If it is, you can surely expect another highprofile resignation.
I’m not begging for the job, I believe in what I’ve done . . . I believe in the potential of this team I hope the FA make their judgment on what has happened and not on what some journalist has written You don’t get prizes for possession; you don’t get prizes for the most corners; you don’t get prizes for having the best of the play. You get prizes if you win