ROY HODGSON – A RECESSION ENGLAND MANAGER FOR THESE RECESSION TIMES

IN THESE very pages I told you a few weeks ago that Roy Hodgson would become England manager – after my spies at FA HQ told me that he was their No 1 choice above Harry Redknapp and Martin O’Neill.

The FA didn’t dispute Harry’s achievements at Tottenham nor his ability to man manage. But there was a feeling that Hodgson was much the better international ambassador and that by choosing Roy there would be no unseemly squabbles over paying up multi-million pound contracts (estimated at up to £10 million for Harry, nothing for Roy - he had yet to sign his new deal at West Brom).

Plus there is the FA’s claim that Roy is much better suited to the job than Harry or O’Neill – because he is well versed in both international and continental football after his time as manager of Finland, Swizterland and Inter Milan.

But none of that takes away the feeling that as football fans we have been short-changed. That we have got Hodgson primarily because he came on the cheap and that he won’t rock the boat – we have got a manager to reflect the times we live in right now. An austere, recession manager - for an austere, recession period.

I felt pretty flat when he was unveiled this week. At least with Harry we would have had someone to lift the gloom of the recession – a man we could laugh with and at as he attempted to get England playing with passion and verve. With Roy, it is like being told you must stay and watch the TV and eat soup and bread – no fun nights out on the town for us for four years!

We have an England manager who comes with low expectations and who can probably be relied to live up to them. Use this as a key yardstick of how it is going to be under Hodgson – if he picks Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in his final 23 for the Euros it will be a very good sign. If, as I expect, he doesn’t, then you know what to expect – we will exit either at the opening group stage, or the first knockout stage as he goes with his outdated belief that 4-4-2 is still the way forward rather than the fluid, flexibility of say the interchangeable system employed by Spain, France or Holland.

They say that the definition of insanity is repeating the same mistake time and again – and expecting a different outcome. Well, Roy, you saw how hard it was for you to make a go of it at Liverpool when you weren’t the man the fans wanted – why should it be any different at England, when this time again aren’t the man the nation’s fans wanted?

And why have the FA given Roy a four-year deal? If it all goes pear-shaped quickly, they could end up having to pay him two years money - £6million smackers! Why, when the FA quad who chose him are three-quarters made up of a flash PR bloke and two chartered accountants (and Trev Brooking who looked very uncomfortable indeed when he tried to justify why Roy was sat next to him rather than Harry) did they not have the financial and legal sense to give him a two-year deal, thus limiting any possible (likely) payout for dismissal?

Then again, the fact that three of the four men who chose the new England boss are a flash PR bloke and and two chartered accountants – rather than proper, knowledgeable  footballing men – perhaps helps explain why Roy Hodgson is now the new England manager.

FRANK WORRALL
www.frankworrall.com