Roy Hodgson
What pleased you the most from the game?
It’s a very good question, a difficult one to answer in just a few words. I thought that the attitude of the players and their desire to play well and win this game, I thought that was there for all to see. I thought three front players, and we’ve been berating [them] to try and get a little bit more work from, a bit more pressing, a bit more understanding of their positional play, I thought that was a very positive aspect of our play. Because apart from the fact that they did pressurise the Southampton defence, they managed to create some pretty good chances too. So we were good value for our two goals. And then I suppose finally the thing that really pleases me was the fact that after conceding that goal right in injury time, at the end of the first half, and not having the cushion, if you like, that two-goal to nil lead at halftime, that goal coming could really have dented confidence, could have really dented our belief. It certainly didn’t, because we went out in the second half and continued where we left off. And then finally, resilience is such an important factor in top Premier League football, it doesn’t matter whether you’re at the bottom or if you’re fighting for place in the Champions League. To have that resilience, to stay in the game, to deal with the corner kicks and the free kicks that might be coming your way, to deal with all the things that happen in a game of football that you don’t want to see happen to you, but they do – resilience is the only word I can think of to come through.
How good was Cucho Hernandez?
He’s playing well. I mean, yeah, you have to think about Cucho, I think that what I’ve just said in answer to the question [before], I think that applies to him as well. His attitude was good, his workload was good. He runs throughout the game and doesn’t stop. I think that for us in the time we have left at the club, we’re going to keep working on his understanding of, you know, what we expect positionally from him. But I think that’s normal. And I think he wants that. So every moment we can get to work with him, and discuss when we’ve lost the ball, we’d like him in these positions. And when we won the ball, we’d like him in these positions. That’s a benefit. But the one thing he obviously doesn’t know how to do, he knows how the score when a chance comes his way. The goal against Arsenal, and the second goal today, we’re great goals. And the first goal, that’s the guts, determination, resilience, desire, that I am afraid I talk about far too often.
Did you see that result coming after Wolves?
The problem with Thursday, I did see it coming after Arsenal, because we played well. It reminds me when I lost seven games in a row with Crystal Palace at the end of the season, when we’d done so well. We were comfortable with about 38 points after 29 games and we lose seven in a row. And every week we’d get the questions. But the problem was the games that we lost, we didn’t really deserve to lose them. You know, we deserved to lose one or two, of course, and we lost one heavily. But we didn’t deserve that. That wasn’t the way the game was. And it’s the same out there the other night. You know, we concede with the first chance they create in our penalty area, with some poor defending of course – all goals are poor defending somewhere along the way. So we go a goal down, which is not good, because we’ve not started that badly. But then six minutes later, we’re three-nil down. Then at half time we tried to lift the players, we’ve given them a nice target: Well, look, we’re not saying you’re going to go out and score five, we’re not stupid, it’s going to be tough. But let’s see if we can at least play evenly or win. And we got to about five minutes from the end and the guy scores a wonder goal. So suddenly, four-nil, we’re a disaster. In actual fact, we weren’t that much worse than we were today. We were better today. But it wasn’t as if: ‘Well, if you were terrible Thursday and you were good today’. That wasn’t the case. We’ve actually been relatively even in many respects, but we need to be better. And I’d like to think that I do see signs of us actually getting a bit better. But then we go to Liverpool and we get beat 4-0 and you’ll tell me again it is a disaster, and you’ll need a reaction.
Is it good you now have a big break before the Watford next game (vs Liverpool)?
No, it’s not good for us for the simple reason that we don’t have any players. It would have been great. Ray [Lewington] and I would have been turning cartwheels at the thought we could have three weeks now with the team without a game to really work on what we’re trying to do, to try and improve aspects of the play that we think can be improved. We’d have been delighted. But the trouble is, they’re all going away to far-flung corners of the world. And we won’t see them again, until two days before we play Liverpool. They will come back, if we’re lucky, do one session with us on the Thursday, and then it’ll be on a coach to go to a hotel on Friday up in Liverpool. So that’s the disappointing aspect to have so many players away. And I fear – that’s always really missed – because most of those players going away aren’t actually regulars in our team, they’re not going to be regulars necessarily in their national team. So they’re not even going to get the level of physical activity I would like, because as a national team coach, you do concentrate on your starting 11 more than all the substitutes.
How many players will go away?
We’ve got 14, I think, 14 or 15. Basically, it’s easier to count the ones who are going to be at home. We’ve got two goalkeepers. From this team today, we might have five or six. But the problem with that is that’s good, but to work those players, I need to do it in an environment where we play almost 11 against 11, basically. With five or six players, all you can do is work technically, but I don’t need to work technically, I want to work tactically.
Will you be looking at the league table now?
Well, we know quite frankly, that we’ve got four games against the teams that are we’re catching up, if you like. And they’re going to be tough games. And they’re going to be killer games in a way because if we continue to continue to do okay, everyone is going to expect: ‘okay, now you’re playing them at home, bang, you’re going to win.’ But that’s not the way the Premier League works. You know, Southampton didn’t expect Newcastle to come here and Watford to come here and win. They’re playing well, they are good team, but that’s what happens to you. So I’m fearful, if you like it, in that respect for those games. But on the other hand, you can’t deny, they do give you a chance, you know, they are home games. They are six pointers if you’d like to call them that. And we don’t have to lose them. If we’re going to lose them, it’ll hopefully be because the other team were better, not because we didn’t do enough.
In a relegation battle, do you prefer to be chasing teams above, or the team being chased?
Well, I’d like to be top [of the league] really. No, I would love to be outside of the relegation zone. I’d love to be looking down. I’d love to be able to say: ‘well, if we do lose there, we’ve still got four or five points to save us’. That’s what I’d like. But I mean that wasn’t what I was given. I was given a job to look after a team which was in that comfortable position. So we’ve known from the start, Ray Lewington and I, we’re in a dogfight, we will do our very best to do what the club has asked of us – to work with the team, to try and make them a better team unit, and hopefully then to get some points.
Eight points on the road, none at home, what is the reason for this?
No, we get the question every week. If there was a simple answer, that when we we go away from home we do this and away we do something different it, I could answer it. But the tragedy is we don’t. The way we set up to play, the things we ask the players, the team talks, our video messaging to the players, our post-match analysis, our work on the training field, It literally does not change between a home game and an away game. But we lose at home and win away so I understand your question. It sounds weak not have an answer, but I just don’t have an answer.
Southampton wanted a handball for a penalty at the end, do you think there was a foul?
I have no idea. I have no idea. The day might one day come when people get back to their senses and start to go back to the law as it once was that for it to be handball, you had to try and get your hand on the ball and try and stop it going somewhere. It wasn’t just because it hit you because someone says your arms in an unnatural position. When I was younger, certainly, in my playing days, within my early coaching days, I can count the numbers of penalties that we either got, or had against us for handball, on the fingers of one hand, we’re talking years and years. Now, I don’t ever go to a game where there’s not at least one, if not two or three, appeals. We end up appealing in the first half for handball. I don’t know what they were appealing for. I don’t know what they [Southampton] were appealing for here. So I’m afraid that for as long as I stay in the game, I just have to come to terms with, this is the way football is today. I don’t like it. But then I learned I don’t control it. I don’t have to like it.
Will Ismaila Sarr go on international duty despite his injury?
Well, he’s getting fitter. I mean, when I say getting fitter, he still hasn’t trained with the team. But I saw him doing some sort of running the other day. Very controlled because it’s a hamstring injury. I don’t really know when he will be passed fit to go out on the field and train properly. But there’s a big risk of course that that will happen before Senegal call him and ask him to meet up, and if they do that, then we are obliged to let him go. Which is another minor disappointment. It would have been nice if we could have had him with us, but if he’s fit, we will tell them he’s fit. And it will be up to them to decide whether they are going to call him up. But it’d be a bit risky for us. If he stays with us, we can control his training. When he goes to his national team, the risk of him aggravating the injury is a bit greater than it would be if he stayed. But c’est la vie. My French is getting very good these days.
