Roy Hodgson - the conservative choice that may pay-off

  

Harry Redknapp. The new England manager.

Or so everyone thought.

But yesterday the FA’s announced that they were in talks with West Brom manager Roy Hodgson over the manager’s position.
Surprising news, particularly as FA Chairman David Bernstein confirmed that the former Fulham and Liverpool manager is the only man they have approached.

As a result, it is widely expected that Hodgson will be announced as the man to lead England at the European Championships this summer later in the week.

Should that happen, the 64-year-old will immediately be faced with the unenviable task of taking charge of a group of players who almost unanimously expressed their wish for Harry Redknapp to be the next manager.

The widespread support via twitter for Redknapp from the likes of Rio Ferdinand and Wayne Rooney after Fabio Capello’s resignation seemed to represent the views of the whole squad, and the nation!

However, when considering Hodgson’s credentials, he is a worthy candidate. 
Unlike Redknapp, he has experienced international football before as well as managing at a major tournament.

When in charge of Switzerland in the early 1990s, Hodgson led the Swiss to the 1994 World Cup in the USA. They progressed through the group stage, but lost 3-0 to Spain in the last 16.

It was the first major tournament Switzerland had qualified for in 26 years.

Hodgson then ensured they successfully qualified for Euro ’96 before leaving to take charge of Inter Milan. Not a bad couple of bullet points on his CV to discuss when sitting down with the powers that be at the FA.

He’s also led Fulham to the Europa League final on little resources, as well as turning a ‘yoyo club’ like West Brom into a mid-table Premier League side.

Despite his impressive track record, potentially the key reason that the FA have turned to Hodgson is money.

His contract with West Brom runs out next summer and therefore not much compensation would have to be paid to the Midlands side to relieve him of his duties.

Plus he will probably demand a smaller annual salary, and possibly a shorter contract, than the likes of Harry Redknapp and Pep Guardiola.

In Redknapp’s case, the amount of compensation Tottenham would demand to release him from his contract is a potential stumbling block for the FA. 
Judging by previous transfer dealings that Spurs Chairman Daniel Levy has been involved in (notably the Luka Modric transfer saga last summer and Dimitar Berbatov’s move to Manchester United) he would squeeze every penny the FA had out of them in order to appoint Redknapp.

That is not an especially attractive proposition for the FA considering Redknapp has never managed a national team before. Plus, his Tottenham side have gone from supposed title challengers to probable Europa League qualifiers in just three months thanks to just five wins in 15 games.

Looking ahead to the European Championship, it would be no great surprise if England fail to make it out of the group stages with Wayne Rooney missing for the first two group games against France and Sweden.

That’s the worst case scenario for the FA. That and the fans singing Harry Redknapp’s name and demanding that Hodgson is sacked before he’s even put a family picture up in his Wembley office.

Compared to what the FA have paid out to fire someone before, it would not be a major issue.

Hodgson therefore is the conservative choice that has the ability to prove the doubters wrong.

Good luck to him.

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