Roy Hodgson
What is the latest injury team news?
We haven’t had a lot injuries really. We’ve been fortunate. I can’t think who was missing last time, but no, we’ve got pretty much a full complement. There’s young Kwadwo Baah, who is still recovering from an ankle injury but he should return to training next week. And we do have one or two players suffering from a slight bout of sickness that we’ve had going around which affects their tonsils. So we’ve had one or two missing from training this week but again I think probably they’ll all be available tomorrow.
Has the international break allowed Watford to rest and work on new things in training?
Yeah, we always try to work on things in training. But if you’re talking about your team, which is going to try and confront Premier League opponents in the next games, we’ve missed a lot of those players because they’ve been away. But there’s been a good solid contingent of players, if you like, that have been here during the two weeks, or even three weeks, actually, that we had – because a week before the players went on international duty. So it has been quite a good period of time for us in terms of being able to work on our game or to continue working on our game, because there’s not anything we’ve suddenly come across that we need to do. It’s a constant process really, of trying to improve the way we defend and the way we attack. So it’s been good to have some time with the players in that respect. But of course, we have had to accept that some of the ones that we’d have liked to have been a part of that process have been playing for their national teams instead.
Liverpool is a hard game to come back to, how will you look to take some points from the game?
With trepidation, I suppose, is the answer [to] how you look at the game. Because they’re good. And they’re near the top of the table, we’re at the bottom. Tables don’t lie, you know, the teams at the bottom are there because, up to now, they’ve not been able to do well enough to get to the top. And the ones at the top are obviously good, because that’s where they are. So every time you play a team like Liverpool, away from home, you know that today the odds are stacked against us. And that doesn’t matter whether you’re just below them in the table, or whether you’re a long way below them in the table. There’s no secret to how good they are or why they’re good: the quality of their players, the quality of their work on the field. So we know all of those things, all we can do is hope that we are able to produce on the day the sort of performance that will get us the result which will surprise the football world, because of course we go there very clearly as underdogs.
What have you made of Liverpool’s continued success under Jurgen Klopp?
It’s not a surprise. I mean, Liverpool are a big club. They are a club with a fantastic history club that if ever they suffer a blip in fortune, it’s never going to last very long. And a club of course, that are clever enough to make certain that the manager they appoint is one of the top people in world football and to get behind him and support him in the way that all managers would like to be supported: provide the players. And when you get the combination of a good manager who knows his job and knows how to get the best out of players. And you give him some very good players to work with. Really the recipe for success is there. But it’s easy to say that from my point of view. I mean, I’ve worked in both ends, I’ve worked with teams that are expected to win, and I’ve worked with teams that are expecting more often to lose. And to be honest, the difficulty of the job as a manager remains the same. So I’m not suggesting for one minute, his [Klopp’s] job is easy. But of course, if you do get the right man and you get the right players, as long as the work was done is good, you will be successful. And that’s exactly what Liverpool have been under Jurgen [Klopp].
Are you in favour or against the proposed five substitution rule?
Well, if I’m not working next season, it won’t really bother me. If I am working, it will depend very simply on whether I’m working for a team at the top of the table or a team at the bottom of the table. Because the five subs rule helps the teams that are at the top of the table, because they have the best players and more quality normally on their bench than the teams that are below them. So of course having the ability, like we saw with England the other night when they’re playing Ivory Coast, when the five England subs came on, and then the poor five Ivory Coast subs come on, there’s a slight difference in quality between the two groups. I can understand why the top clubs want the five subs. They’ve got international football, you know, their players play more international matches than perhaps the team’s slightly lower down. But more importantly, they play Champions League. And that’s a lot of midweek games of great importance, so I can understand why they want it. But I can also understand and even support the teams down the bottom who find it hard enough, anyway, with their best 11 to go and play against the opposing team’s best 11. If you’ve got to go and play against their best 16, that makes it even harder.
Harry Maguire was booed by England fans this week, as a former England manager do you think that’s right?
Of course not. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand where the impetus for that comes from. I don’t know what the fans are reading or what they’re being encouraged to do. But it strikes me as being well virtually beyond any comprehension, as far as I’m concerned. This is with someone who’s representing his country and being chosen to represent his country. And for his country, has always done his best and has always played well. Last year, in the finals, he was one of the heroes of the country. I don’t understand how suddenly he deserves to be booed. But maybe you will tell me something that’s been going on with Harry Maguire that I’ve missed, because I don’t follow every single thing that’s been said or written. So maybe I’m being naive. But having seen nothing to warrant any criticism of Maguire, other than the fact that the Manchester United fans aren’t happy their team is losing. In which case, we’ll have to say to all fans there, grow up. Because you know, if you want to support football, sometimes your team’s going to win, and sometimes it’s going to lose.
Are you a fan of golf, and will you be watching the Masters?
Yes, I’m a fan of golf. I like the game. It doesn’t like me very much, but I like it. So I should undoubtedly be watching the Masters whenever I get the opportunity. And the good thing, of course, is it comes on reasonably, reasonably late. So you get a chance to see something other than the normal TV viewing of an evening. So I shall be looking forward to watching.
Has the international break allowed you more time to get ready for Liverpool?
Well, obviously it has, yeah. Although, not with all the players, of course, because a lot went away. We had a week with everybody, which was useful in terms of helping prepare, of course. But now like everyone else we’ve had a couple of days or not even that. Because our players, a lot of them are coming back from Africa, they’ve actually been with us here today, but not in a position to train. So we’ll only have tomorrow morning before we travel up with the whole squad in terms of absolute preparation. But then that’s the same for everybody else. I’m not put in any particular position, Liverpool are in exactly the same position as we are. So I’ve enjoyed the three weeks, I think we’ve worked well. I think the players would work extremely well during those three weeks, those that have been here. And all we can hope is that now we have given ourselves – with the work we’ve done, maybe even the extra fitness we’ve done – a little bit more of a basis to push on for these last nine games and try and secure our status.
What, from the Southampton win, do you want to see more of against Liverpool?
That’s a long time ago, I can’t remember whether we played well from start to finish or not. It was a good result. I don’t remember thinking at any stage of the game, we’re playing very badly today, or we aren’t doing what we’re trying to set out to do. But lots of little things go on in the football match. If you watch them over again, some will delight you and some won’t. Often, when you watch the game back as well, you realise that some things that you thought were very good weren’t as good as all that, and some of the things you thought were really bad, weren’t, actually as bad as all that either. That’s why if you want to enjoy a good result, don’t watch the game. Because then you’ll see all the faults that you missed you too in the actual performance itself. I think our task is very simple one. We’ve tied a chain around our neck, if you like, attached a rock to it, and we’ve got to pull that with us now wherever we go. Because we’re points behind the teams we need to catch up. And everyone knows that in any league – you know, we always say, oh in the Premier League, but it’s the same in any league – once you get some points behind, and the number of games starts to dwindle, your job to get those points and hoist yourself up back into a position of safety becomes more and more difficult each time. And every opportunity has to be one that you do your level best to grasp. But again, you need to be realistic about it. You know, we’ve got to understand that there are certain games where the teams that we are going to be playing are definitely not in our region because they’re not in the bottom three. The ones we play, we’ve got Burnley I think, with all the others are way out of the bottom three at least. But there are teams where you would like to think that with the players we have, the quality we have, that we can give those teams a good game and they get a result if things go well for us. And there’ll be other games where you’re just hoping that your team will pull off some sort of exceptional performance and surprise the football world by getting a result that no one expects. And all the gamblers who bet on football will be very angry with you. We went to Man United and drew nil-nil. That’s when the hate messages start coming on Twitter, I guess, I don’t know. I don’t read Twitter, but I’m certain if I did, I’d be getting plenty of hate messages for that.
How would you describe Liverpool’s form?
It’s excellent. I mean, it’s been excellent from the start. Two teams, really, from the beginning have been really really good. I mean, I think Man City lost their first game, didn’t they? And I mean, as far as I can remember, the race has been literally between Man City and Liverpool, with Man City racing away for a while. And now Liverpool racing to catch them up. So it’s very, very exciting. And these two teams are exceptional teams. And I would be very surprised personally if one of the two of them didn’t actually bring home the trophy. But it’s the job of teams like us, because we play both Liverpool and Man City, to try and put a spoke in the wheels. And if we were lucky enough to put a spoke in the wheels and get much-needed points for ourselves, it’s going to put my popularity and the popularity of Watford Football Club very low down on the list of Liverpool and the Man City Christmas card list, or whatever you like to call it.
What are Ismaila Sarr’s chances of playing for Watford this weekend?
Yes, his chances of being involved are okay, as far as I’ve seen today, he’s been recovering. But I mean, as long as tomorrow, he convinces us that he’s recovered from the efforts, it was 120 minutes as well and he played both games. So it’s been a hard journey for him to play for Senegal this time, but a very successful one. So that’s buoyed his spirits I’m sure. I’m pretty certain he’s going to be putting his hand up tomorrow and asking to be put into the starting line-up. And as far as I’m concerned, a player of his quality is going to be very, very important for the club, if we are going to pull ourselves away from the relegation zone. Because you can’t do it without players of that sort of quality. It doesn’t matter how much you do as a coach or manager, how much work you do trying to prepare the team, and the final analysis. It’s a question of how good the 11 players that you’ve decided to put on the field are doing their jobs and how capable they are going to be of producing the sort of performances that can get you results. And my last memory of Ismaila before he got injured at Man United, was a very positive one. He did very well up there, he worked exceptionally well, he was very good for the team. And his help, if you like, as one of the 11, got us a particularly good result. So that’s what I’m basing my thoughts of Ismaila on. But I don’t have that background that maybe you, and some of the people here will have, who have been watching him play for last three or four years on a regular basis.
How much good could it do for Josh King’s confidence after he scored a hat-trick for Norway?
A lot I would think. There’s no doubt we’re going to need all the firepower that is available at this club. And, you know, we do have five players in particular, all of whom I think have been playing, at times at least, regularly in the first team. All of whom have got a proven pedigree, and we’re going to need that. So it’s great when they go away and they come back and they’re fit. But it’s even better when they come back, like Sarr, celebrating the fact that his team have now qualified for the World Cup, and Josh King celebrating a very good game with a hat-trick to boot.
How hard is it to execute a game-plan against this Liverpool side?
Well, I mean, that’s the question of preparing for what you know the opponents are going to throw at you. And if you’re playing Liverpool, you know that what the opponent is going to throw at you is probably a little bit worse than some of the teams that you’ve played previously are capable of throwing at you. Because they are very, very well organised. They have very, very good players. And as you rightly say they pose threats in certain areas. So if you seal off the central areas, where they’re very good at breaking through, you’re going to do that at the cost of leaving a bit more space more wide where they also have players who can profit by the space you give them. So there’s no easy answer to that question we can do really. Am I confident, I think the question was, that the players will try to carry out any game plan that we think is necessary. And it’s a fairly simple game plan. It is to deny them time and space in our final third, and to make certain they don’t get into the areas where they want to get into. So that isn’t rocket science as such. And I’m pretty certain that players will work very hard to do that. But at the same time, there’s still going to be lots of situations in the game where the quality of the opponent, may scotch all of those attempts you’ve made to get your tactics right, to get your team shape, right. Because otherwise, [Mo] Salah wouldn’t be scoring 30 odd goals a year, or [Sadio] Mane and these guys. We’re not going to be the only team who go to Liverpool with a plan to try and stop them.
How much are you looking forward to seeing Jurgen Klopp again?
I like to think we have a good relationship. Obviously, I certainly admire the work he’s done and respect the work he’s done, not only here, but in Dortmund and Mainz. And so I’ve known about his work for a long time and I’ve had quite a few encounters with him over the last few years, and they’ve always been very pleasant encounters. It’s always nice to meet fellow professionals, colleagues, who are so good at their job. And I wish him every success going forward. But of course, I’m hoping that he might be kind enough to take the foot off the pedal and tell his players to take a little bit easy on the opponents, but don’t think he’s that type of guy.
Does the club need a must-not-lose mentality for this game, even if it means playing for a draw?
I don’t know how to answer that question. I don’t know how that’s going to help the players. ‘Listen, boys, we don’t need to win today, just don’t lose.’ I don’t know how that’s going to make any difference to our performance. But I’d have to come up with something much cleverer than that if we were going to produce some sort of performance that no one in this room at the moment could dream of seeing. It won’t be as simple as that: just don’t lose. because that will be easy. That’s a little bit of an Italian Serie B mentality. With that you get 38 points and stay up, that’s alright, is it? You never win a game, you never lose any. I don’t feel we’ll be able to do a deal with Jurgen Klopp before the game: ‘I’ll tell you what, let’s have a draw today.’ I don’t think that will work.
