McClennan wrote:
Where's the bile in that? The players came out in praise of Hodgson for him bringing the team together, including Gerard who appeared to have nothing but good words to say about Hodgson. I've had this conversation with another Liverpool mate of mine who can't get past himself for his vitriol about Hodgson. It tainted his view quite a bit but he wasn't so belligerent as to not acknowledge what things had been done better.
I'm not saying Hodgson did a brilliant job but he did as good as, if not bettter, than each of the four previous England managers. Who, let's not forget, had the resources of the golden generation. We are a top eight team in Europe, realistically not top four, so he achieved what was expected and yet we might even have sneaked into the semi-finals.
How did he bring the team together, then? Matt Hughes from The Times got this pretty much spot on the other day when he said this:
Plus imp to remember that changes Hodgson lauded for - openness, city centre base, more relaxed atmosphere - were introduced by Capello.
It's not that I'm not interested in good words about Roy, it's that things like "he united the players" is tosh. Steven Gerrard sat next to him the other day in the post match presser and made him look daft. Roy was saying that possession doesn't matter, Gerrard said we need to keep the ball better as it puts more pressure on us. Is that togetherness? Gerrard could have backed his manager's every word, but he didn't. Why?
IMO, Roy had more 'benefits' than any of the previous managers over the past ten years or so. Every other manager had the task of fitting all of these 'world class' players into a squad and they had to play well. Roy's shocking tactics and football were completely ignored, if Capello or Sven went out like that they would have been hammered by all corners until they were sacked. As an example, people still criticise Capello for scraping through the Slovenia game in 2010, yet not one person has criticised Roy for scraping through games against Sweden and Ukraine. You yourself are trying to claim that he's done better than any of the previous four England managers. He done the same, if not worse than others. England always go out against the first decent side they meet: Italy, Germany, Portugal and Brazil being the past four sides to knock them out, so Roy didn't exceed anybody there, whilst he went out in the first KO round, something achieved at the last visit to the Euros and something surpassed at the 2006 world cup.
I really couldn't care less about Roy, he's a nobody who'll only ever be remembered as Liverpool's worst manager in over fifty years. What I can't stand, though, is people trying to glorify Roy and make him out to be something he isn't, especially when some of the same people criticised Capello endlessly for poor performances. England never show any ambition, any signs or quality or any signs that they were being well-managed, but all of this has been largely ignored. The squad Roy picked was at an all-time low technically, the statistics speak for themselves with regards to passing and possession, yet it will all conveniently be ignored. Why?
