Hodgson - I dont know why I'm here; smint?

[Cormack74]

Looks like he's being driven into an asylum.

[Arn]

England manager Roy Hodgson believes Steven Gerrard can play beyond 2014 World Cup thanks new role
Steven Gerrard’s career can be prolonged after his successful switch to a midfield holding role, according to England manager Roy Hodgson.

Hodgson also dismissed the notion that Gerrard will quit international football after next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil — should England qualify — even though the 33-year-old himself has suggested it.

Hodgson revealed that he had considered using Gerrard, who will lead Liverpool, with three wins from three matches, in their Premier League encounter away to Swansea City tomorrow, in his new deeper-lying role during his brief time as Liverpool manager in 2010-11.

“I have always to some extent questioned Steve as an out-and-out attacking midfield player who plays like Roberto Baggio or Gianfranco Zola,” Hodgson said. “I’ve always questioned that a little as Steve has such energy, he really is a box-to-box player and if you take him away from the build-up from the back then sometimes you are not getting the best out of him. I thought that when I was with Liverpool – I’d made that decision already then.”

Gerrard, who has two more years left on his Liverpool contract, has already revealed he is considering prolonging his club career beyond his 35th birthday but has stated that he sees the next World Cup as a natural end of his time as an England international which has already earned him 105 caps.

However, Hodgson said he was not convinced Gerrard, his captain, will quit, especially as he has prospered in his new role which saw him as England's most effective midfielder in the midweek World Cup qualifying draw against Ukraine.



His form for Liverpool has been equally impressive as he has been asked to play deeper and play the senior role behind the team’s tyros such as Philipe Coutinho.

This season Gerrard has lined up in front of the central defence, alongside the fit-again Lucas, with a pass completion rate of 87 per cent, his best ever, and winning 73 per cent of tackles in the final third, with nine key interceptions.

“I always think with players it’s easy to talk about retiring in a year’s time,” Hodgson said. “I’ve fallen into that trap myself on several occasions.

“But when the time actually rolls around you realise that you don’t actually want it. So let’s wait and see with Steve. I know he gives these interviews and I know people write things but I just bat those off really.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-new-role.html

[Arn]

You do know Roy that Gerrard in the free attacking position was maybe the best player in the world?

Oh and another thing Roy, Gerrard have played in a deep midfield position for the national team a loooooong time.

So zero credit to you

[Fredo]

Roy Hodgson's bland England are champions of misplaced arrogance

http://www.theguardian.com/football/...and?CMP=twt_gu

He was to the left of the press box. Every so often the woman in the next seat would give him a prod or a fluorescent-jacketed steward would come over to shake his arm or, on one occasion, gently slap his cheeks, presumably to check he was still breathing. He never stirred and the TV cameras inside the Olimpiyskiy in Kiev missed a trick in not picking him out. It is not often you go to a football match and there is a man sleeping throughout the entire game.

There is a gag in there somewhere. England: the team that send people to sleep. They dull the senses. They huff and they puff, and sometimes the good old English qualities of guts and perseverance, and all those other cliches, are enough. But it is joyless, utterly joyless. The football equivalent of Mogadon. Roy Hodgson's England.

OK, perhaps that's a touch harsh. The drabness that has fastened itself to England had set in long before Hodgson became involved. They are top of their World Cup qualifying group – even if that probably says more about the moderate standard of the other five teams – and if they win their next two games no one will remember that night in Kiev when Hodgson strode into his press conference, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after what he thought was a triumphant performance, only to find the rest of us had seen little but a grey team, on a grey night, in a grey city.

England may yet spare us any more indignity, at the same time as the other teams representing our domestic game appear to be trying to outdo one another when it comes to states of dishevelment.

That was certainly some feat by Northern Ireland to become the first side since 1972 to lose a competitive fixture against Luxembourg, sieving three goals to a team featuring a mortgage adviser, a school caretaker and a student, in what the Belfast Telegraph described as the country's worst defeat. Wales are back in the familiar groove of getting beaten as a matter of routine; the Republic of Ireland have just fired another manager; and it probably sums up the past week that, Luxembourg aside, Scotland's win in Macedonia might be the biggest shock of the lot.

There is a widespread assumption that everything will automatically fall into place for Hodgson with the final two games, against Montenegro and Poland, at Wembley – which is just bemusing. England might not be very good at knocking the ball from one player to another – the basics of pass‑and‑move football –or anything to create the illusion they can make a serious challenge for the peaks of the game. But they are the world champions at misplaced arrogance. To listen to some people is to feel it must have been a trick of the mind that the only teams England have beaten in Group H over the past year are Moldova and San Marino. Or, to put it another way, a side from page five of Fifa's world rankings (30 countries per page) and another that has been rock-bottom for so long – alongside Bhutan and the Turks & Caicos Islands – that it barely needs looking up.

It is true that England have not lost any of their group fixtures. They have conceded only three goals and there are ways of dressing it up to make the latest wave of criticism feel like a deception. Yet it is surely not ungrateful of us, or expecting too much, to want to see a side that is not so chronically inhibited on the occasions that really matter, and capable of sophisticated football.

It doesn't happen, it appears to be unshakeable, and when Hodgson regards any dissatisfaction with the Major Gowen levels of bewilderment that were apparent in Kiev, it is probably time to confront the truth about the man the Football Association headhunted from West Brom.

An uncomfortable truth, in many ways, when the man in question inspires a lot of public goodwill. We are not all heartless swines in the media, either. Every press conference (non-match, anyway) he won't start until he has shaken every person's hand. He works the room. We like Roy. It is hard not to like Roy. It was no fun seeing him get so uppity in Ukraine and writing this, unfortunately, is a reminder about the occasionally two-faced nature of the media.

We smile and we stab, but, ultimately, we have to give an honest opinion – and it has been frustrating, to say the least, that, before now, it has been virtually impossible to question England's performances under his management without being blindly, and wrongly, shot down as the "Friends of 'Arry" brigade.

The feeling here is the same as when he was appointed: that Hodgson is not a good fit for this job; that he was always a bland choice, particularly now it is established that Pep Guardiola had people contacting the FA; and that just because the best time to judge him is after the World Cup (all being well) that doesn't mean we cannot assess his 19 months in the job and wonder why not a single part of the process has scored higher than six out of 10.

Some will blame the players and there is something in that – but only to a point. If there are players who find themselves pulled down by the whole England experience, worried about doing something wrong, it is the manager's job to put them at ease, soothe the nerves and get everyone in the best possible frame of mind. The first requirement of a good manager is to get the best from his footballers and, plainly, that is not something Hodgson can boast of when the same people misjudging passes for England routinely excel for their club teams.

Nor was it the players who decreed England should revert to classic long‑ball tactics against Ukraine, or who took so long coming round to the idea that 4-4-2 in international football, with a big lad up the top, belongs to the era of Shoot! league ladders and old Wembley. Or, going back to Euro 2012, that it was not worth ringing Michael Carrick to see if he could be coaxed into playing, rather than relying on third‑hand, inaccurate information that he was beyond persuasion (a sequence of events that probably deserved a lot more scrutiny than it actually received).

Hodgson once managed a Fulham side that came back from 4-1 down to Juventus to win 5-4. Now his whole ethos could probably be shoehorned into that revealing little nugget about Manchester United against Chelsea being the outstanding game so far this season. In Kiev, his eyes twinkled as he talked about a "very high-quality" match and there were sharp put-downs for anyone who disagreed. The grotty 0-0 draw seems to have become a thing of beauty.

David Bernstein, Greg Dyke's predecessor as FA chairman, said in June that England could win the World Cup. At least Dyke was realistic when he dismissed it as hogwash. England are treading water. They have not gone under yet, but it's still possible someone could tie a brick to their foot.

At the same time, there are other people at the FA already talking about being at the World Cup in Brazil, with no "if" about it. Hodgson says the team is "growing all the time", but there is no real evidence of any improvement, just the sense of futility that it is not going to get a great deal better any time soon.

Hodgson is not about to reinvent himself at the age of 66. The FA knew what they were getting and even in the worst-case scenario – if England make a pig's ear of what is left and the block-booking at the Windsor Atlantica on Copacabana has to be cancelled – there is no stand-out candidate to take over and remove the Joy Division levels of pessimism from columns such as this. In all likelihood, it would be a straight choice between Sam Allardyce and Harry Redknapp, and another meltdown on social media. And on it goes.

[Cormack74]

England manager Roy Hodgson believes Steven Gerrard can play beyond 2014 World Cup thanks new role
Steven Gerrard’s career can be prolonged after his successful switch to a midfield holding role, according to England manager Roy Hodgson.

Hodgson also dismissed the notion that Gerrard will quit international football after next year’s World Cup finals in Brazil — should England qualify — even though the 33-year-old himself has suggested it.

Hodgson revealed that he had considered using Gerrard, who will lead Liverpool, with three wins from three matches, in their Premier League encounter away to Swansea City tomorrow, in his new deeper-lying role during his brief time as Liverpool manager in 2010-11.

“I have always to some extent questioned Steve as an out-and-out attacking midfield player who plays like Roberto Baggio or Gianfranco Zola,” Hodgson said. “I’ve always questioned that a little as Steve has such energy, he really is a box-to-box player and if you take him away from the build-up from the back then sometimes you are not getting the best out of him. I thought that when I was with Liverpool – I’d made that decision already then.”

Gerrard, who has two more years left on his Liverpool contract, has already revealed he is considering prolonging his club career beyond his 35th birthday but has stated that he sees the next World Cup as a natural end of his time as an England international which has already earned him 105 caps.

However, Hodgson said he was not convinced Gerrard, his captain, will quit, especially as he has prospered in his new role which saw him as England's most effective midfielder in the midweek World Cup qualifying draw against Ukraine.



His form for Liverpool has been equally impressive as he has been asked to play deeper and play the senior role behind the team’s tyros such as Philipe Coutinho.

This season Gerrard has lined up in front of the central defence, alongside the fit-again Lucas, with a pass completion rate of 87 per cent, his best ever, and winning 73 per cent of tackles in the final third, with nine key interceptions.

“I always think with players it’s easy to talk about retiring in a year’s time,” Hodgson said. “I’ve fallen into that trap myself on several occasions.

“But when the time actually rolls around you realise that you don’t actually want it. So let’s wait and see with Steve. I know he gives these interviews and I know people write things but I just bat those off really.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...-new-role.html

I'd play him even deeper as a proper sweeper. I know it's not especially popular anymore but I reckon it would give the Bodge the best chance of holding on to his job.

[Bender]

Oliver Kay @OliverKayTimes 41s
Hodgson on Ashley Young omission: "I don't like to use the word 'dropped'. He just fell outside the 23, I guess ..."

[Muddled]

Tom Cleverley over Jordan Henderson? Pfft.

I can *almost* understand the inclusion of Ross Barkley, but Tom Cleverley? Nah.

[Roboklopp]

Arsed. Rather our players didn't play for England- and especially the Bodge- he's like that pesky floating turd that just won't flush.

[Shaggy]

[Gibbo]

The kim jong one is amazing

[Shaggy]

[Shaggy]

[Shaggy]

[dom9]

[Leyton388]

That Queen one.

He's got to be singing We will wock you. Lets face it woy wouldn't know the words to we are the champions.