New manager ready to select experienced players
Last Updated: May 15, 2012 8:59am
Roy Hodgson: Set to keep the faith in those players that have been to major tournaments before
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New England manager Roy Hodgson has indicated that he is ready to give another chance to players who have failed to deliver at previous tournaments.
Hodgson will announce his 23-man squad on Wednesday and has been carefully considering his options since being appointed as Fabio Capello's permanent successor at the start of May.
He has now hinted that there are unlikely to be many surprises in his selection and that he will keep faith in the experienced players.
Hodgson is also reluctant to jettison those who played a key role in securing qualification for Euro 2012.
"It has been interesting taking over a squad of players that has qualified for the tournament and done extremely well to qualify for the tournament under another manager," he said.
"I have tried to keep things in mind there and try to put together a squad which I think is capable of doing well in the tournament.
"And giving players also a chance perhaps to show that they are as good a player as we believe they were in the previous tournaments, when maybe the team has not gone quite as far as we hoped they would go."
Whirlwind
Hodgson admits it has been difficult over the past fortnight to try and juggle the demands of becoming England boss with his role at West Brom.
He has now left the Baggies following the conclusion of the Premier League season but appreciates the way the players remained professional, even if Marton Fulop's poor performance contributed to a 3-2 defeat by Arsenal on Sunday.
on Sunday."It has been a whirlwind. It has not been easy to balance the two things," admitted Hodgson.
"It is one thing to say you are going to be fully professional and say you are going to keep your mind focused on your job at West Brom, but when you have just been given the England job and you know the Euros are coming up it is almost inhuman if you can balance it and I'm very grateful to the players that they have balanced themselves.
"Even though I'm afraid our goalkeeper let us down a bit (on Sunday), otherwise the players have done a remarkable job and kept West Brom's heads above water.
"It has been a remarkable season and now I'm looking forward to the next job and that is going to be an even more interesting and complicated one."
Hodgson's first game in charge will be a friendly against Norway in Oslo on 26th May and England open their Euro 2012 campaign by taking on France in Donetsk on 11th June.
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