ENGLAND MANAGER HODGSON BITES BACK AFTER FLAK

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 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. 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.’

Hodgson received 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. He has our full support, he has been a great manager and we are going to do great things in this tournament.’

Hodgson has been in feisty fettle all week. He defended the changes he made against Slovakia in the face of questioning by the English Press.

His main point has been that switching full-backs is standard these days, given the amount of running they have to do in the modern game; 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.

‘So, 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.

‘That is amusing to me because of all the players that I’ve 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 is our captain and Wayne will play”. ‘And now we didn’t score against Slovakia despite 29 shots and 15 corners and God knows what else because Wayne didn’t play more than 30 minutes. ‘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 (left) or that I didn’t start with Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling. ‘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, in 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.’

Defeat against Iceland, which would bring 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,’ he says.

‘I will prepare 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, saying: ‘I am not prepared to go into that. I’ve been working for 40 years, don’t ask me those sort of questions.’

In truth, he is not being judged on one game. It is the culmination of three tournaments on which his future will be decided.

Hodgson’s view is that England look a 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.

‘If that criticism is there, I don’t think it is good we need so many chances to score a goal. I am a coach and players would agree with me as well; if that is the criticism, we’ll have to accept it.

‘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 goals.

‘Unfortunately, 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 goal-scoring chances.’