Roy Hodgson - Just a Great Manager.

It is difficult not to admire Roy Hodgson not only for the job he has done at Fulham but also the manner in which he has gone about doing it. He took over at Craven Cottage last year with a squad which looked destined to be relegated. The personnel were not much better (or different) than Northern Ireland's which is fine when the height of your ambition is to finish fourth in a qualifying group for the Euro's but it's not exactly a guaranteed formula for securing your Premier League future.

Roy Hodgson managed Fulham's predicament brilliantly last season. He used the January transfer window to clear out the players who weren't up to it and bring in players who were. Some of these were unknowns who Roy felt could do the job for him in the Premier League and others were players he knew had more to offer. No one had ever heard of Brede Hangeland until Roy made him the rock at the centre of Fulham's defence. It should have been too much of a risk to bring such a player from a Scandinavian league with so much at stake but it worked mainly I would say because Roy knows what he's doing. Even the players who haven't been so emphatically successful such as Zolton Gera or Eric Nevland have played a part chipping in with a few goals and being very solid squad players.

The funny thing is that on the face of it, it doesn't look like he is doing all that much. He plays 4-4-2 every week and almost the very same players whenever he can. He has Danny Murphy playing like a top-notch centre midfield player because that's simply what he is, not that too many of his other managers have had the nous to pick up on that.

Simon Davies plays on the right side of midfield and puts dangerous crosses into the box. He plays Andy Johnson and Bobby Zamora as two centre forwards, the idea being I would think that it will give midfielders another option when they are looking to attack plus having two attackers doubles your chances of scoring. It might be a bit of a risk but surely the eight players behind them should be able to handle the defence. They haven't been prolific but then Fulham strikers never are. All the same they have scored more than a few important goals and set up plenty others. They are improving all the time and I don't think anyone could argue that the partnership hasn't been a success. Simple really isn't it?

I could go on about the genius involved in the signing of Mark Schwarzer on a free or thrash out the old lines about the team being greater than the sum of the parts but there is a whole lot more to Roy Hodgson than that. I remember watching his Switzerland team at USA '94. I was only 12 at the time but I remember thinking "Switzerland- they are shit". My instinct was validated by the RTE panel's match analysis which concluded something similar having watched them draw 1-1 with the hosts in their first game.

At the same time, in the back of my simple little I was thinking, how in in the name of God did the Swiss qualify in the first place and why don't they go for the jugular a bit more? They seemed boring and conservative.

The answer to the first part of that question is that Switzerland qualified for USA 94 because of Roy Hodgson. They didn't go for the jugular because Roy knew that if they did that they would leave gaps at the back which would be exploited and they would be quickly shown up as a second rate team again. John Giles along with most other pundits (i.e. failed managers) cannot understand this approach to management and thus the achievements of such teams are usually overlooked. In spite of their limitations that Swiss team still qualified out of their group.

That Swiss team wasn't the most exciting but as Trapatonni would say, if I want entertainment I'll go to the opera. Hodgson's Swiss team was very effective and qualified for Euro 96 as well. Fulham don't play swashbuckling football but they are effective and I think the quality of their play has improved as their results have gotten better and maybe the players have become more comfortable with the system having eventually learned to do the simple things right.

Things haven't always gone right for Roy Hodgson and even when they do, he still gets criticised. As Finland manager, it was thought that the team weren't attacking enough which was borne out by five 0-0 draws in their group. They still managed to get 24 points though. As Steve Staunton proved with Ireland, small countries and even the idea of purely entertaining football are a disastrous combination.

At Blackburn Roy was sacked. He signed Kevin Davies that summer and it didn't really happen for the guy but I think it's fair to say that Davies has since proved himself a top Premier League striker. He's no Fernando Torres but he has scored more league goals than him this season. Roy didn't lose focus or faith in his methods at that point.

He returned to the Premier League via coaching Grasshoppers of Switzerland, winning a Danish Championship with FC Copenhagen, coaching the UAE and one or two other equally random stops along the way. Roy's management style has been consistently successful yet he hasn't been given the time or the opportunity at a club that might actually win something. Those clubs are few and far between of course and if the revolution at Fulham continues he might yet get a chance.

Roy says he doesn't give motivational talks. He just instructs the team on what he wants them to do. He was linked with the Ireland job. If he had gotten it, I think we would be in just as healthy a position but Roy's position would be tenuous because maybe he lacks the force of personality that Jack Charlton had or the reputation and successes of Trapatonni. That would appear to be the only way to defeat the bully boys at RTE.

Roy goes about his job effectively and logically and this is reflected in his the performances of his teams. He doesn't complain, he just works with what he has and plays the percentages to ensure get the best results they can achieve. You could say that Roy is a successful Brian Kerr.

For me the moment which summed him up was when he was shown on Match of the Day 2 giving an interview in Norwegian to Norwegian television. For a guy who failed to break into the Crystal Palace first team before playing for the likes of Gravesend & Ebbsfleet (they are actually just one club), he is simply a class apart. And I haven't even mentioned Clint Dempsey.