Roy Hodgson forced to abandon get-together with England players
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Version 0 of 1. Roy Hodgson has been forced to cancel a planned get-together with his England players at the end of the month after various Premier League clubs, with Chelsea prominent among them, objected to the idea because of their fixture schedules. Hodgson has now accepted that a date cannot be arranged after José Mourinho indicated he would not release Gary Cahill if the meeting was held on 29 January, two days before Chelsea are due to play at home to Manchester City, and other clubs raised their own concerns. Chelsea also play Liverpool in the second leg of a Capital One Cup semi-final on 27 January and it is understood the Football Association spoke directly to Mourinho last week. Spurs take on Sheffield United in the other semi-final the following night and though the FA’s impression is that most of the clubs were broadly supportive of Hodgson’s idea, finding a date that suited everyone eventually became so complicated the relevant people have reluctantly given up any hope of it happening. Chelsea were not alone in having reservations about one of their players having to travel to St George’s Park in Staffordshire, when they would prefer him to be resting or preparing for a top-of-the-table game, and that means Hodgson will have to wait two more months before he next sees his squad, before the Euro 2016 qualifier against Lithuania on 27 March. In the meantime, he will send his players some of his key points in digital form, so they can access the information on their tablets. The players will receive notes about the performance against Scotland but Hodgson will no longer have the opportunity to explain in person. The FA had assured the clubs that the meeting would last only a few hours but no compromise could be reached. The decision caps an embarrassing couple of days for Hodgson in which he has been held up for ridicule since it emerged he did not vote for Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi to win the Ballon d’Or, nominating Javier Mascherano as the world’s best footballer in 2014, with Philipp Lahm in second place and Manuel Neuer third. The only other vote for Mascherano came from the Belarus manager, Andrei Zygmantovich, and Jamie Carragher’s assertion that Hodgson must have been going “for the clean sheet” has been followed by so much mockery the England manager felt he ought to explain his choice. Hodgson has privately stated that he always expected Ronaldo or Messi to win the trophy and wanted to be different by selecting someone from the pack, identifying Mascherano because he had played so well at the World Cup. |