25/04 - 20:00
On Tuesday, Watford announced that they had appointed former England manager Roy Hodgson on a contract until the end of this season.
It could be suggested that The Hornets have gone against their usual philosophy of identifying a manager from abroad and bringing them in based on either a Pozzo hunch or their success in a lesser league. An example would be Xisco Munoz’s impressive reign as Dinamo Tbilisi boss in Georgia.
The idea behind that would be to be able to reach a higher ceiling. For example, the likes of Hodgson have a ceiling that is now well-known. It is usually, if not always, good enough to be firmly in the Premier League but it can often limit your future beyond that. A peculiar or left-field candidate that Watford usually go for leaves open the possibility of a high ceiling – albeit risky.
In their current circumstances, they cannot risk it and have to sacrifice the potential of a potentially good but relatively unknown manager. They need as close to a banker as possible and Roy Hodgson is the man they have chosen.
Watford have had a precedence in doing that when they appointed the tried and tested Nigel Pearson for the end of the 2019/20 campaign and whilst Pearson improved them, he was still sacked with two games to go as the Hertfordshire club were relegated. Hodgson, though, will hope to be different.
Hodgson the hornet
It is has been a long and distinguished career for Roy Hodgson. The Croydon-born 74 year-old has coached in nine different countries across a 46-year career.
Halmstads to Bristol City to Oddevold to Orebro to Malmo to Neuchatel Xamax to Switzerland to Inter Milan to Blackburn Rovers, back to Inter Milan as caretaker, to Grasshoppers, to Copenhagen, to Udinese, to the United Arab Emirates, to Viking, to Finland, to Fulham, to Liverpool, to West Bromwich Albion to England, with a spell as England under-21 boss as caretaker, to Crystal Palace and now Watford.
Watford is his seventh club job in England. He had four club jobs in Sweden, two in Italy, one in Norway, one in Denmark and one in Switzerland. He has coached four national teams. To use the word ‘experienced’ to describe Hodgson’s career would, arguably, be under-selling it.
Discipline, shape and organisation
A theme of Roy Hodgson’s tactical vision is rigidity and repetition. The exaggerated view of Hodgson is the stereotype of tying a rope around his back four at training so they are constantly in line and tight.
Whilst obviously not necessarily as tedious as that, players have suggested that the Hodgson school of thought can get quite dull quite quickly. Drills and techniques to make a team organised and hard to beat are, as mentioned, repeated and repeated and repeated.
It does the job, though. His work in Sweden is still often remembered and even now, Scandinavian and Nordic football is influenced by that of Hodgson. The same sort of 4-4-2 which is often still played today, in particular by Sweden, has also been implemented by Finland, Iceland and Norway; Denmark to a lesser extent.
He took over a Crystal Palace side that had lost their opening seven matches but his emphasis on organisation eventually paid off and The Eagles stayed up. When working with a more humble group of players like at Fulham and West Brom, Hodgson can get his teams over-achieving. When working with a group of players potentially less willing to listen and perform his drills, like with Liverpool and England, it might not go as well.
Chances of survival
Watford have a good squad. Attacking options such as Ismaila Sarr, Cucho Hernandez, Joao Pedro, Emmanuel Dennis and Josh King with the likes of Ken Sema in reserve should have enough firepower to stay up.
A midfield with Edo Kayembe, Tom Cleverley and Moussa Sissoko alongside experienced pro’s in Juraj Kucka and Ozan Tufan should, in the right environment and in a coherent tactical game plan, have enough to stay up.
Defensively there have been issues but the Pozzo’s will hope the January additions of Hassane Kamara and Samir will help shore up a porous back-line.
There is an experienced core with some genuine star players up top, mixed in with the usual bit of smart Pozzo recruitment and potentially hidden gem. In a league whereby Burnley and Newcastle United have won three matches between them and Norwich City who had won just two games themselves until the last ten days, Watford should be able to steer clear of the bottom three.
However, two months of waiting of Claudio Ranieri to build on their 4-1 defeat of Manchester United could well cost them.
It shouldn’t yet be too late but Roy Hodgson’s rigid philosophy will take a bit of time to bed in to the players – the repetition is key and, by its very nature, repetition takes time.
It is good for Watford that they didn’t wait any longer as Newcastle and Burnley both seek January reinforcements, Norwich pick up their form. Leeds and Everton could get dragged into the battle and that will leave The Hornets confident of survival.
It is going to be a scrap but they have a good manager in place for that scrap.
