Roy Hodgson

[Craig_H]

All these things play a part

Then again, Wigan's brilliant for parking - but i want them to go down because it's so ****ing far away

Also why i want QPR to come up and one reason why i want WHU to stay up.

[Rudo]

iv edited my post man ur too quick to reply

[Craig_H]

It's not a major thing in the big scheme of things, but the little things like ease of parking and ease of getting there etc, play a big part in how much i like or dislike going to certain grounds/clubs

The practicalities of it become very important.

[IN_RAFA_WE_TRUST]

[Shaggy]

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/02/11/roy-hodgson-is-the-signing-of-the-season/

Roy Hodgson is the signing of the season

Forget the millions spent by the Premier League big boys Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City on improving their teams. It is little West Brom that have made the best signing this season.

Today they announced that Roy Hodgson has taken charge, on a contract until the end of next season. Whether they had the former Liverpool manager lined up when they decided to dismiss Roberto Di Matteo last weekend is unclear, but if they did, it makes the sacking of the Italian much more understandable.

Hodgson had a dreadful time at Liverpool and was out the door by ‘mutual consent’ little over six months after walking into Anfield. Recent results on Merseyside (and one in particular at Stamford Bridge) have conspired to suggest Roy Hodgson wasn’t getting the best out of the Liverpool team. Yet I maintain, as I have written before, Hodgson is a special manager and given more time would have had the ability to turn things around. In any case, he wasn’t given that chance.

Now he arrives at West Brom – and the club are in free fall. After an excellent start to the season they have lost 13 times in their last 18 matches and sit two points from the relegation zone. They need to turn things around fast. I am in no doubt Hodgson will improve the side; the question is whether Hodgson can improve them fast enough.

His poor start at Liverpool did not come as a surprise. After taking over at Fulham just before the turn of the year in 2007, results and performances did not magically change over night. The Cottagers continued to lose and relegation looked a certainty despite the change of manager.

Hodgson drills into his team discipline and rigid tactics. Fulham played like a machine once it worked, pressing at the right times, positionally aware, covering team-mates with robotic efficiency. It was a machine that inevitably saved Fulham from relegation, took them to seventh the following year and the Europa League final the year after that.

But the players took time to understand. It only seemed to finally click at half-time against Manchester City in April 2008. From 2-0 down, they came back to win 3-2. They then kept winning and miraculously stayed up thanks to a headed goal from Danny Murphy on the last day of the season.

Now at West Brom, Hodgson has less time than he did at Fulham – about six weeks less. Also, he doesn’t have the luxury of a transfer window (at Fulham he signed Brede Hangeland during the equivalent window). I sincerely hope the current LMA Manager of the Year turns it around, and with it banishes the negative perceptions of him that were created at Liverpool.

Simon Rice is the Online Sports Editor for The Independent and a Fulham season ticket holder.

[Craig_H]

****ing hell

I'm half expecting Jeremy Beadle to pop out in a minute

[Shaggy]

Roy has no 'magic words'

Baggies boss hoping for result against Wolves

West Brom manager Roy Hodgson insists he does not have any 'magic words' to improve his side's form ahead of the crucial clash with Wolves on Sunday.

The two teams meet in a crunch Black Country derby in the Premier League which is a relegation six-pointer at the bottom of the table.

It will be Hodgson's first game in charge of the Baggies since his arrival at the Hawthorns although he was in stands for their capitulation against West Ham last weekend.

The former Liverpool boss is hoping for a positive result and admits that he has been working hard on the training pitch to put the Hammers result out of the window.

"You live through bad football results, and hopefully you try to put them behind you and you try to analyse why it was a bad result," Hodgson said.

"Then you try to work hard to make certain that you're better prepared next time to get good results.

"I think that the best way to work psychologically with players is to make sure your training sessions challenge them and that you give them plenty to think about.

"That there's a few magic words that someone can come in and say to a team and their problems are dispelled, and all the sadness of recent weeks suddenly disappears, for me is a complete myth."

Support

The experienced coach is hoping the crowd at the Hawthorns will roar them onto victory this weekend but admits the worm may turn if Albion's results continue to slide.

He added: "I would hope that the fans give the team a boost, but to benefit from that, we'll have to give them a boost. That's the important bit.

"Fans care about their team and they want to see their team do well.

"When the team isn't doing well, even with the greatest fans in the world, and Liverpool have some of the greatest fans in the world, you can't expect them to be overjoyed when they're watching their team draw and lose when they expect their team to win.

"I fear that will be the same here as well. I think we'll have excellent support, but if we want to keep that support we've got to start winning some matches."

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_6761813,00.html

[Rudo]

It's not a major thing in the big scheme of things, but the little things like ease of parking and ease of getting there etc, play a big part in how much i like or dislike going to certain grounds/clubs

The practicalities of it become very important.

Fair does

i just want Wolves to win because i've always quite like them, and i did like West Brom pre-Roy but i'm actually starting to really dislike the bloke.

I defended him at times when he was with us, but some of his comments were ****in disgraceful and he never in my eyes really appreciated the job of being Liverpool manager.

Now at West Brom, i heard him the other day saying something along the lines of 'well 1 week is no time prepare a team for a big derby match like this' the man has an excuse ready at every opportunity and it sickens me.
Always shifts the blame away from himself.

[Craig_H]

I've nothing against Wolves, i quite like them and admire the fact that they've played quite well this season (against some of the big teams anyway). That side of things is another reason to want rid of them too though, i'd like them replaced with an easy 6 points. As well as the parking situation

[red g]

cant remember what it was on, but saw hodgson getting interviewed and when asked if he would make a big difference and he said " not sure as one week is not really long enough to get your team how you want as a matter of fact neither is 4 or 5 months"

just wish he would except he was **** for us with dignity

[Craig_H]

cant remember what it was on, but saw hodgson getting interviewed and when asked if he would make a big difference and he said " not sure as one week is not really long enough to get your team how you want as a matter of fact neither is 4 or 5 months"

just wish he would except he was **** for us with dignity

What a ****ing tool he is.

Love how 'judge me after 10 games' changed to '4 or 5 months isnt enough'

On the plus side though, at least he accepts that the job he DID do in that time wasnt good enough. There were times where i was starting to worry that he thought 10th-12th or whatever we were, was actually ****ing good enough

[Rudo]

cant remember what it was on, but saw hodgson getting interviewed and when asked if he would make a big difference and he said " not sure as one week is not really long enough to get your team how you want as a matter of fact neither is 4 or 5 months"

just wish he would except he was **** for us with dignity

yep that was the comment i was on about.

[cannotmakeit]

FC Copenhagen coach Stale Solbakken, left, clashes with Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola during the Champions League match. Photograph: Claus Bech/EPA
FC Copenhagen were founded only 19 years ago but they keep doing the impossible. They have won six of the past eight league titles; they have managed to get Jesper Gronkjaer fit and firing on all cylinders; and this season they are so superior domestically that they are making the Scottish Premier League look decidedly competitive. Not a bad feat.

Stale Solbakken's side are 19 points ahead of second-placed Odense in the Danish Superliga at the halfway point of the season. They are the Celtic or Rangers of Scandinavia. Or make that the Bayern Munich or Lyon of the north. They have become so rich and successful that they can buy the best emerging talents from other Danish teams, strengthening their own team while weakening those of their rivals.

Denmark, clearly, is no longer big enough for this emerging behemoth. On Tuesday FC Copenhagen take on Chelsea in the Champions League and they will do so in the knowledge that they rattled Barcelona in the group stage and that the English champions are struggling. The Danes will fancy their chances, despite not having played a competitive game for four months because of the winter break.

It is a remarkable position to be in less than two decades after the club was formed – a merger of two clubs (KB and B 1903). How have they done it? "There are two parts to our success," says the sporting director, Carsten Jensen. "First we came up with a long-term business plan, with the football club as the focal point and other businesses, such as holiday companies and fitness chains, supporting the football club. So that gave us a solid financial footing. Second, we hired Roy Hodgson as a manager in 2000 and he revolutionised the way we looked at football.

"Before Roy came in, the players had just come in to train and to have a laugh. He made us focus throughout the week. He prepared everyone thoroughly and within a year the whole attitude of the club had changed. He laid the foundations of an ethos, a philosophy, at the club and what he did still has a big influence on how we work here."

The club continued to prosper, having bought Parken Stadium (where England played and where Chelsea will play). They let it to entertainment groups (for concerts) and the Danish Football Association (for internationals) and increased their revenue. In 2006 FC Copenhagen beat Manchester United in the Champions League group stage and a seventh league title in nine years is sure to come in May.

Yet there is a slight difference in playing bottom club Aalborg in the Danish Superliga and Chelsea in the Champions League. But the fact that Chelsea paid a transfer fee – £50m on Fernando Torres – that would keep FC Copenhagen running for more than five years does not seem to perturb Jensen. "Talent-wise we obviously can't compete with the best teams in Europe," he says. "But we have looked at successful clubs around Europe, with Arsenal and Manchester United being good examples, and developed our own philosophy. We have a long-term plan and do not listen to outside influences such as media and fans and go and sack a manager after a few bad results.

"We have had three coaches in 10 years and not sacked any of them. We have a system that all our teams, from the Under-14s to the first team, play and when a coach comes in he doesn't tell us how to play, we tell him how to play.

"We have to be much better than the top teams tactically and that's where our system comes in. We started 10 years ago with Roy and we learned how to defend properly and work as a team and gradually we are learning how to go forward in different ways. When we defend we play a 4-4-2 or sometimes a 4-4-1-1 but when we attack the players take up all sorts of different positions with fluidity. But without the solidness of our defending we could not challenge the top teams in the Champions League."

FCK's current success has been underpinned by the colourful coach Solbakken, the former Norwegian international who had an unsuccessful spell at Wimbledon in 1997-98 (six league games and one goal). He stopped playing in 2001 when he suffered a cardiac arrest during training with FC Copenhagen. His heart stopped beating for around six to seven minutes and his team-mates thought he had died, but he was revived and made a full recovery.

The experience has made Solbakken a laidback person off the field but he remains extremely competitive when it comes to achieving success for his team. "He was very determined as a player, with a hint of arrogance," Gronkjaer told the Swedish magazine Offside recently. "He had a colossal will to win. He was a general, a special kind of winner. I only played with him for a few months but you could tell within minutes. He still has a lot of those characteristics and I have a lot of respect for him and his attitude towards the team. He is always asking: 'How do we move our positions forward?' He has succeeded in taking this team to a completely different level. He is a motivator of the kind I have never seen before."

One thing is clear: Solbakken does not fear anyone. After FC Copenhagen had drawn 1-1 at home against Barcelona, Solbakken nearly came to blows with Pep Guardiola, with Sergio Busquets having to step in and push the FCK coach away. Guardiola was upset over some comments the Norwegian had made in the pre-match press conference but after the incident Solbakken just said: "Guardiola's behaviour was wrong, maybe he did not realise that it was just a Norwegian making a very bad joke."

On Tuesday, the joke could be on Chelsea.

[cannotmakeit]

Someone still loves him

[Shaggy]

OMG he's such a cunt

Roy Hodgson is prepared to be Brigadier Boring again to win his second Premier League survival battle.

That’s the affectionate name he was given by *Fulham’s players for the *endless defensive drills in training that dragged them from relegation *certainties to a UEFA Cup final.

And after just five days at West Bromwich, sacked *Liverpool boss *Hodgson is making no *apologies for adopting the same approach again.

In three long sessions so far he’s scrapped five-a-sides and spent his time laying out the strategy he hopes will bring the Baggies their first clean sheet since August in today’s bitter Black Country derby at home to relegation rivals Wolves.

Hodgson admitted: “Yes, it is exactly the same process that I followed at Fulham – although I have to say that there was a lot more to it than just doing the same things day after day.

“But if you mean is the *answer to rehearsing for a *Saturday to have variety, or to have consistency of what you are working on, then it is *obviously consistency.

“The top singers, if they want to improve their vocal range, they do it by singing, they don’t do it by playing cards.

“When golfers are not putting well we expect them to go away and spend hours and hours just putting, there’s not an awful lot of variety in that. Yet in football we seem to have this myth that if you are doing loads of different things, even if they have no relevance at all to what you will do on Saturday, that’s what coaching is about.

“The important thing is to make sure the players, when they go on to the field, have a very clear idea of exactly what is expected of them as individuals and as members of a team. The only way you get that is by practising it.”

Hodgson added: “It will take time. All coaching jobs, if you talk about a manager or a coach having a big *effect, take time. Habits don’t change overnight.

“Do we have enough time? Well that’s the question that only the rest of the season will answer.”

Defender Jonas Olsson *revealed: “All the work we have done this week has been 11 against 11 on a big pitch, sorting out exactly how we are *expected to perform.

“I’m not saying that we didn’t all try to defend as a team before – but it has been made very clear to us this week exactly how the new manager wants us to go about that.”


http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news...#ixzz1EUTEQnwt