Roy Hodgson: “This is the biggest job in club football”
New Liverpool FC manager Roy Hodgson got straight down to business on his first day of work today, before speaking in glowing terms about his new club.
The 62-year-old held a training session at Melwood this morning, before meeting the world’s media for the first time as Liverpool manager.
“I'm extremely proud,” he said, “the club's tradition in terms of its football and its managers is really second to none and it was an opportunity which was absolutely impossible to turn down. I am both proud and excited at the prospect of working as the Liverpool manager. It’s the biggest job in club football.”
The former Inter Milan and Blackburn Rovers boss has been in management for 34 years, and joins Liverpool having left Fulham, the west London club he guided to the Europa League final last season, an excellent achievement when compared to Liverpool’s nightmare 2009/10 campaign, which saw the club lose 19 matches in all competitions, which resulted in manager Rafael Benitez losing his job at the beginning of last month.
“The ambition initially is to do better [than last season],” said Hodgson.
“For Liverpool the ambition always has to be to try and achieve a Champions League place and that's what we'll be trying to do as soon as possible. There's no point in setting low goals to make yourself look a bit better if you get beyond that goal. I don't think any of the players or staff wants anything other than a successful Liverpool year and we want to hit the ground running. You can't do more than work for that.
“It's important to get started straight away, working with the players, trying to create an environment which will give us a chance to become better and hopefully improve upon the last season.”
Hodgson started his managerial career in Sweden during the 1970s, a time when Liverpool were a dominant force both at home and in Europe, and the Londoner claims that he learned a few things from watching the Reds in action.
“What we picked up was the Liverpool style,” said Hodgson, whose first competitive match as Liverpool manager will be a Europa League qualifier in just four weeks’ time.
“On paper it was a relatively simple style but in actual fact simplicity is the hardest thing to achieve. Working in Sweden, as I was at the time, they were all very impressed with the quality of the passing, the quality of the movement, the way players were always available for each other. Of course the quality of the players they produced at that time, firstly Toshack and Keegan and then Dalglish and Rush, and then the great partnerships at the back with Smith, Thompson, Hansen and Lawrenson; we were brought up on that.
“Earlier in my career I brought a group of coaches over and Bob Paisley was great. Graeme Souness was the coach but Bob was still around at Melwood and I remember having a cup of tea with him. He was a really interesting man to meet. You can never turn the clock back and live those times again, but it would be nice if we could fashion an image again which in some way represents what these people pioneered so many years ago.”
Both Liverpool’s captain and vice-captain – Steven Gerrard and Jamie Carragher – have endorsed the appointment, with Gerrard claiming that Hodgson is “the right man for Liverpool” and Carragher revealing that he’s “really looking forward” to working under his new boss. The man himself is appreciative.
“That was really nice and I am looking forward immensely to meeting them,” he said.
“I bumped into Jamie in Port Elizabeth but had no chance to really speak to him and that would have been too soon anyway. I am looking forward to speaking to those two in particular.”
It is clear that Hodgson is immensely proud of his new position, and his respect for the heritage and traditions of the club have already gone down well with supporters.
“It's very important you have that humility as a manager. At Liverpool it's highlighted really because the traditions here are so great, but even if you go to a smaller club it's still important that you're aware of what the club has done in the past and what the club means to the people.
“There's nowhere more keen on what a club means to the people than the city of Liverpool.”
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