the times | Thursday February 3 2022 69
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away on Africa Cup of Nations duty with
Senegal. “It’s going to be vital to have a
player of his quality,” Hodgson said. “I
had a situation at Palace where we had a
[goalscoring] player not too dissimilar,
Wilf Zaha, and there was a similar
accusation aimed at the club: that when
Wilf didn’t play, we didn’t get the wins.
“I’m used to that one, but if he [Sarr]
can do as much to help this club as Wilf
did for me at Palace, I shall be really
happy — and I believe he can.”
Hodgson has retained his humour,
warmly greeting old critics from his
darkest days with England in his media
Zoom meeting. Hodgson doesn’t seem
scarred by his England experience as
others were, including the late Graham
Taylor, who went from the Watford
dugout to the England hotseat.
Under Hodgson, England went out in
the first knockout rounds of Euro 2012
and 2016 and in the group stage of the
2014 World Cup. “The times between
the tournaments went pretty well,”
Hodgson recalled. “We rejuvenated the
team after 2012. Going into 2014 it was
a much younger, more exciting bunch
of players and the results had been good
and then the tournament comes along
and we lose a couple of matches and all
of a sudden it really is disaster time.
“We were confident going into 2016
and we thought this could be our mo-
ment but then an Iceland comes alongand it blows everything out of the
water. I was fortunate in the sense I was
a little bit older and could get a little bit
more perspective to it — if you can ever
get perspective. But it certainly hurts
and it certainly took me a while before
I got any equilibrium back again.
“I don’t think it scarred me partly
because if you’re England manager
you’re hanging on one result and every-
thing you’ve done in preparation for
that result can get completely
destroyed by a moment of folly.
“It can even be destroyed by some-
thing outside your control, as Gareth
[Southgate] found out.” Hodgson
mentioned England’s run to the Euro
2020 final before meeting Italy. “He did
so well and then you lose in a penalty
shoot-out.”
Before the Zoom call concluded,
Hodgson was asked for his favourite
song from the celebrated collection of
Watford’s club president, Sir Elton
John. “I like the more romantic ones
than the rock ‘n’ roll ones, but there are
so many,” Hodgson replied.
“Of the more recent ones, I rather
like Sacrifice. Of course, ‘It’s no sacrifice
at all,’ being here, but I was not being
clever with the lyrics. There is no
analogy with the situation in which I
find myself, it’s just a song I like.” Hello,
yellow brick road, Hodgson’s journey
continues.Steve Bruce is among the candidates
West Bromwich Albion are considering
to replace Valérien Ismaël after sacking
the French head coach yesterday only
seven months into a four-year contract.
Bruce, 61, the former Newcastle
United manager, has already had talks
about the position. Ismaël’s departure
was confirmed on a day of upheaval at
the Hawthorns, with Ron Gourlay re-
placing Xu Ke as chief executive.
Ismaël’s last game in charge of the
Sky Bet Championship club was a 2-0
defeat by Millwall in which supporters
called for him to be sacked due to a poor
run of results and his defensive tactics.
West Brom paid Barnsley compensa-
Tom Roddy, Martyn Ziegler
ALAN COZZIHarold Wilson was prime minister
when Roy Hodgson first started out in
management at the Swedish club
Halmstad in 1976. So here he is, 46 years
later, sitting in a Watford tracksuit and
still drawn to the game “like a sailor to
the siren call of a mermaid”.
The siren sound should probably
have rung alarm bells with someone as
well-read on mythology as Hodgson,
who knows his task with Watford is to
steer them away from the
rocks of relegation. “I’m
beginning to regret
already the siren
analogy,” he said,
laughing. “It’s going
to come back and
haunt me, I’m
afraid, in years to
come.”
What was very
clear as he spoke
was that Hodgson,
now 74, will bring his
enduring enthusiasm
to his short-term Wat-
ford role, as well as plenty of
experience acquired on a coach-
ing odyssey through eight different
countries since 1976.
“I clearly remember about Wilson,”
Hodgson said, in explaining his longev-
ity. Hodgson was 29 in 1976, taking over
Halmstad on the recommendation of
Bob Houghton, who was then at Mal-
mo. “We were delighted to be full-time
coaches, but I remember at the time
saying, ‘We can’t do this for ever.’
“As a football coach you don’t last for
ever. [We said:] ‘So why don’t we make a
pact that if we can get to 40, we’ll try
and save a bit of money in that time, and
Return like
the siren call
of a mermaid,
says Hodgson
then we’ll open a travel agency where
we can organise tours for players?’
“That seemed like a good idea, and
then 40 [years] came and went. I sup-
pose that gives [you] an idea that we
didn’t see ourselves as invincibles, or
people who’d go on for ever and ever.”
Yet he has managed clubs such as
Inter Milan and Liverpool, Fulham,
West Bromwich Albion and Crystal Pal-
ace, as well as the Switzerland, Finland
and England national sides. If he strug-
gled in the pressure cookers of Liver-
pool and England, Hodgson still has a
widespread reputation for organising
teams and making them defensively
sound, which is why the Premier
League’s 19th-placed team came calling.
“I’ve been fortunate that jobs have
consistently come my way, and I’ve felt
good enough physically and mentally
and haven’t lost that initial
energy and enthusiasm,
big qualities I’ve always
had,” he said. “I
thought they would
really plummet
through the years
but they haven’t.
“But the slip-
pers weren’t get-
ting that itchy! I
wasn’t waking up
every day and
thinking, ‘Oh, God I
wish I was at training’.
But then an offer comes.
I was convinced really by
the board — by [the owner]
Gino Pozzo, by Scott [Duxbury, the
chairman] and by the sporting director
Cristiano [Giaretta] when they met me.
“I felt I was ready to take on this quite
arduous task. It was a question of, ‘If
this would be fun?’ and ‘If I could do a
good job?’ When the answers to those
questions were ‘yes’, I jumped in at the
deep end. I can only hope that jumping
in at the deep end won’t see me
drowning.”
Watford have collected only one point
since Ismaïla Sarr was injured on
November 20 and he has recently beenVeteran coach full of
energy and enthusiasm
as he begins survival
mission at Watford,
reports Henry Winter
from the
n. “I’m
egret
en
d,is
sm
Wat-
plenty of
d on a coach-
gh eight differentand haven t
energy a
big qua
had,”
thou
rea
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wishI
BBBut then
III was con
ththhe board —
Gino Pozzo by ScotHodgson, having shown he retains his humour during a press conference on Zoom, left, takes a training session at WatfordWest Brom consider Bruce
tion last summer to hire Ismaël as the
successor to Sam Allardyce after they
were relegated from the Premier
League. West Brom are now fifth in the
table and eight points off the automatic
promotion places after one win in eight
games.
The club are drawing up a list of can-
didates to replace Ismaël, with Bruce
among the names under consideration.
If Bruce were to be appointed, he
would be the first manager since Ron
Saunders to take charge of West Brom,
Aston Villa and Birmingham City.
Meanwhile, Gourlay, who had been
working as a consultant adviser, was
named as chief executive. He has held
senior positions at Manchester United,
Chelsea and Reading.Everton sack manager
Vasseur after ten games
Everton women have sacked their
manager Jean-Luc Vasseur after only
ten matches in charge (Molly Hudson
writes).
The 53-year-old, who won the
Champions League with Lyons in
2020, took charge on October 29 on a
two-and-a-half year deal after the
sacking of Willie Kirk. Vasseur
oversaw four wins, two draws and
four losses in his ten matches. His one
league victory came against
relegation-threatened Leicester City.
Everton, who had high hopes of
qualifying for the Champions League
this season, are tenth in the Women’s
Super League.
The club confirmed that Chris
Roberts and Claire Ditchburn will
take charge on an interim basis.Keane tops Sunderland’s list
week. Keane said in an interview with
The Sunday Times last year that he
would like another chance to manage a
club. “I definitely have that bug, that
desire to go back into it,” he said.
After the return of Jermain Defoe,
the fans’ favourite, to Sunderland,
Keane’s reappointment would be
another hugely popular move with sup-
porters as the club look to avoid a fifth
successive season in the third tier.
Sunderland have no shortage of
candidates for the vacancy. The vastly
experienced duo of Neil Warnock and
Mick McCarthy, another former
Sunderland manager, have both sig-
nalled their interest in the job. JonathanWoodgate, the former Bournemouth
manager, and Alex Neil, the ex-Preston
North End boss, are also under consid-
eration. Grant McCann, who left Hull
City last week, is also set for talks.
Johnson was sacked after Saturday’s
6-0 defeat away to Bolton Wanderers
which left the club in third place, five
points behind the league leaders,
Rotherham.
Sunderland hope to make an ap-
pointment before the trip to AFC Wim-
bledon on February 12. The sporting di-
rector, Kristjaan Speakman, said: “The
process to appoint a new head coach is
under way and we’ll provide a further
update in due course. In the interim, we
have highly skilled staff in place to
oversee the first-team programme.”continued from back
Hodgson’s great escapes
WITH FULHAM 2007-08
How they stood: Mar 7, 2008
P W Pts GD
17 Bolton 28 6 25 -14
18 Reading 28 7 25 -23
19 Fulham 28 3 19 -23
20 Derby 28 1 10 -44How they finished: May 2008
P W Pts GD
17 Fulham 38 8 36 -22
18 Reading 38 10 36 -25
19 Birmingham 38 8 35 -16
20 Derby 38 1 11 -69WITH CRYSTAL PALACE 2017-18
How they stood: Sept 30, 2017
Hodgson in charge for three matches
P W Pts GD
17 Leicester 7 1 5 -3
18 Swansea 7 1 5 -5
19 Bournemouth 7 1 4 -7
20 C Palace 7 0 0 -17How they finished: May 2018
P W Pts GD
11 C Palace 38 11 44 -10Palace became the first top-flight
team not to be relegated after losing
their first seven league matches