European football would force this season's most successful English manager to change his ways
Posted by David Hytner Wednesday 20 May 2009 17.51 BST The Guardian
The Fulham manager Roy Hodgson has kept a settled side – only 13 players have started more than three league games for the club this season. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images
Fulham have rarely had it so good. Already assured of the best league placing in their 130-year history with a highest top-flight points return, they are poised to enter Europe for only the second time and finish the season with Roy Hodgson on top of the mini-league of English managers. To make certain, Hodgson and his team would need, in all likelihood, to take a point from their final fixture against FA Cup final-bound Everton at Craven Cottage on Sunday, although even that will not be necessary if Tottenham Hotspur fail to win at Liverpool.
Fulham's season has taken in the highs of Premier League victories over Arsenal and Manchester United, the latter of which lifted them with eight games to spare to the commonly accepted safety threshold of 40 points, their principal pre-season target. There have also been lows, including the 4–0 home defeat by United in the FA Cup quarter-final.
Arguably the most startling feature, though, of a campaign that has brought a warm glow to the chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, has been Hodgson's reliance on what these days appears to be an antiquated concept – the settled team. The headline statistic shows that in the Premier League only 13 players have started more than three matches for the club and one of those, Jimmy Bullard, was sold to Hull City in January. Hodgson also kept rotation to a minimum in the FA Cup.
He has been fortunate that injury has not undermined his plans but the man who never changes now faces a dilemma. If Fulham do withstand Tottenham to take the final qualifying berth for the Europa League, next season would begin on 30 July, with the first leg of the competition's third qualifying round tie. There would then be another two-legged qualifier to reach the group phase, in which teams play six matches, before the knock-out stage kicked in with the round of 32.
It is not unrealistic to envisage Fulham making this stage, in which case Hodgson could add 12 games to his season, together with the demands of the travelling. Although opportunity would surely knock for fringe squad members, the truth is that there are not too many of them – a host are also out of contract next month or returning from loan spells to uncertain futures – and Hodgson privately accepts that unless new contracts are offered and signings made, the European adventure could become a damp squib.
Hodgson's success at Craven Cottage has been based on the equilibrium of his squad, along with other similarly *prosaic qualities. He prizes the manner, for *example, in which his central *defenders Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes *complement each other while he signed the strikers Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora last summer to create a similar partnership in attack. The likes of Fredrik Stoor, Toni Kallio and Erik Nevland, full internationals from Sweden, Finland and Norway respectively who have started just five league games between them, have not rocked the boat from the fringes.
Fayed will make transfer funds *available to his manager this summer and Hodgson, who has no inclination to rip up his blueprint, must weigh up how to assimilate greater quality or quantity. Or both. The delicacy of the operation will preoccupy him. Hodgson is so pragmatic it hurts. *Bullard was the fans' favourite yet there was the suspicion that he did not fully embrace his defensive duties and when Hull came calling with £5m, *Hodgson did not stand in their way. Fulham's *replacement central midfielder is the more disciplined Dickson Etuhu. Bullard has hardly been missed. Hodgson has a "no-stars" team ethic and his watchword is organisation. He says that he does not "believe in innovation" and his training sessions involve drilling the players over and over again in the fundamentals.
He came into the job midway through last season with the intention to play the club's way out of relegation danger and when that succeeded at the very death, Danny Murphy's crucial winner at Portsmouth coming with 14 minutes of the season remaining, the squad grew in belief and rallied further behind the manager. They have kept at it this season, their principles never changing. The victory over United followed heavy defeats to them in the Premier League (3–0 away) and the Cup. "Try, try again," Hodgson had urged and the excitement has built steadily.
"It's been a great season so far," said the Ghanaian international full-back John Pantsil, "and to qualify for Europe would cap it off brilliantly."
If Hodgson wakes up with a headache on Monday morning, though, it is unlikely to have come from over-indulgence.
Posted by David Hytner Wednesday 20 May 2009 17.51 BST The Guardian
The Fulham manager Roy Hodgson has kept a settled side – only 13 players have started more than three league games for the club this season. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/AFP/Getty Images
Fulham have rarely had it so good. Already assured of the best league placing in their 130-year history with a highest top-flight points return, they are poised to enter Europe for only the second time and finish the season with Roy Hodgson on top of the mini-league of English managers. To make certain, Hodgson and his team would need, in all likelihood, to take a point from their final fixture against FA Cup final-bound Everton at Craven Cottage on Sunday, although even that will not be necessary if Tottenham Hotspur fail to win at Liverpool.
Fulham's season has taken in the highs of Premier League victories over Arsenal and Manchester United, the latter of which lifted them with eight games to spare to the commonly accepted safety threshold of 40 points, their principal pre-season target. There have also been lows, including the 4–0 home defeat by United in the FA Cup quarter-final.
Arguably the most startling feature, though, of a campaign that has brought a warm glow to the chairman, Mohamed Al Fayed, has been Hodgson's reliance on what these days appears to be an antiquated concept – the settled team. The headline statistic shows that in the Premier League only 13 players have started more than three matches for the club and one of those, Jimmy Bullard, was sold to Hull City in January. Hodgson also kept rotation to a minimum in the FA Cup.
He has been fortunate that injury has not undermined his plans but the man who never changes now faces a dilemma. If Fulham do withstand Tottenham to take the final qualifying berth for the Europa League, next season would begin on 30 July, with the first leg of the competition's third qualifying round tie. There would then be another two-legged qualifier to reach the group phase, in which teams play six matches, before the knock-out stage kicked in with the round of 32.
It is not unrealistic to envisage Fulham making this stage, in which case Hodgson could add 12 games to his season, together with the demands of the travelling. Although opportunity would surely knock for fringe squad members, the truth is that there are not too many of them – a host are also out of contract next month or returning from loan spells to uncertain futures – and Hodgson privately accepts that unless new contracts are offered and signings made, the European adventure could become a damp squib.
Hodgson's success at Craven Cottage has been based on the equilibrium of his squad, along with other similarly *prosaic qualities. He prizes the manner, for *example, in which his central *defenders Brede Hangeland and Aaron Hughes *complement each other while he signed the strikers Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora last summer to create a similar partnership in attack. The likes of Fredrik Stoor, Toni Kallio and Erik Nevland, full internationals from Sweden, Finland and Norway respectively who have started just five league games between them, have not rocked the boat from the fringes.
Fayed will make transfer funds *available to his manager this summer and Hodgson, who has no inclination to rip up his blueprint, must weigh up how to assimilate greater quality or quantity. Or both. The delicacy of the operation will preoccupy him. Hodgson is so pragmatic it hurts. *Bullard was the fans' favourite yet there was the suspicion that he did not fully embrace his defensive duties and when Hull came calling with £5m, *Hodgson did not stand in their way. Fulham's *replacement central midfielder is the more disciplined Dickson Etuhu. Bullard has hardly been missed. Hodgson has a "no-stars" team ethic and his watchword is organisation. He says that he does not "believe in innovation" and his training sessions involve drilling the players over and over again in the fundamentals.
He came into the job midway through last season with the intention to play the club's way out of relegation danger and when that succeeded at the very death, Danny Murphy's crucial winner at Portsmouth coming with 14 minutes of the season remaining, the squad grew in belief and rallied further behind the manager. They have kept at it this season, their principles never changing. The victory over United followed heavy defeats to them in the Premier League (3–0 away) and the Cup. "Try, try again," Hodgson had urged and the excitement has built steadily.
"It's been a great season so far," said the Ghanaian international full-back John Pantsil, "and to qualify for Europe would cap it off brilliantly."
If Hodgson wakes up with a headache on Monday morning, though, it is unlikely to have come from over-indulgence.
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