Roy Hodgson press conference | Queens Park Rangers vs Bristol City

Roy Hodgson met the local media to preview Bristol City's trip to face Queens Park Rangers.

City's Interim Head Coach discussed his time training with the team, his Loftus Road memories and much more. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, Roy, you I don't think you've ever had more than a sort of a a day or two on the uh the the training pitch. Have you had any opportunity ever the other the last day or two to to get any work done really since Monday?

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Yeah, well today certainly. I mean to be fair the Tuesday session was quite interesting for me because it gave me a chance to work with the players who hadn't played in the the game against Sheffield United and many hadn't played against Charlton either. So it was a a nice group to work with of almost ten players, and there were players coming back from injuries who I've not really seen at all. So that was useful, that was a good down the training field, and then today we use this if you like as our main training session during the week where everyone was out there and we were able to do the sort of work we wanted to do, so I feel quite uh comfortable with with that side of things. But again, tomorrow 40 of the session will be um conditioned by the fact that we're travelling down to London afterwards and it will be the day before the game. But no, I always knew there wouldn't be that many training sessions. I know what the programme here is like, but it's a question I think of trying to make the most of the ones you get.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah, and in terms of meeting some of the players that you hadn't spent much time with because I understand that you're focused on the first team, there must still be quite a bit of that going on in terms of figuring out who's who and learning names, even you know, just around the place.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Oh, absolutely. I mean it is uh coming into a new job, you know, meeting people for the first time, getting to know them as well on the on the field and off the field. So, you know, it's gonna take time, there's no question of that. But I must say I think it's gone a lot quicker than I would have anticipated, so I'm perfectly satisfied with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Well, in terms of the job you've been able to do two games, two wins, you you must be happy that you've been able to have some kind of effect and turn a poor runner form somewhat around.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Well, runs of form they get turned around for various reasons, really. But um when you come into a new job, all you can do really is hope that the players are gonna uh react to some of the things that you you put before them and and that everyone's gonna get onto the same page and start trying to play in the way that everyone agrees might be a way which will get us some points going forward, and I once again I really can have nothing but praise for the way the players have gone about that.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Has there been a particular focus on often head coaches and managers start at the back and then build forward? Have you had a particular sort of process in terms of let's try and get this right and then we'll move on to to whatever the next thing is?

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Well, I don't think I I didn't I'm working with players who who know what they're doing. I mean, the the club was quite successful at the early part of the season, so it wasn't a question of coming in here uh trying to completely mend something that was broken, it was a question, I suppose, really, of trying to install a bit more confidence in the player, trying to get them maybe to recover what they ever had in the beginning, which meant it went so well for them. Um and then it's really a question of you know whether you're able to get any results, and if you do, then the confidence gets boosted much more quickly, and we've been very lucky there that we've we've got those results. But I'm I must also say that I think they've come from as a result of good performances. So I think the players can be very proud of their performances and delighted with the fact that it's given points.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

And and confidence-wise, when when you're walking into a group that obviously you don't know well because you've literally just come in through the door, how do you how easy is it to assess what individual players need to try and give them that little bit of boost and put the shoulders back?

SPEAKER_00 3:37

Well, it's a good question, it's a very difficult one to answer. I've been fortunate to have two coaches or three coaches with Pat, the goalkeeper coach, who who've been working with the players throughout the year, so they give me lots of good information, good advice, you know, thoughts about you know what the players can and can't do and what they'd be best at and what their best positions might be, etc. etc. So I've been I've been fed good information, um, and most importantly of all, you if if you're lucky and you come in and you you present yourself and your way of working, if the players are prepared to take that on board, then it's it's not difficult to get started quickly. But if you really want to produce a team which is gonna be very, very strong over a long period of time, then of course that's a that's months and months of work and it's a lot of repetition because you know to get the the way of playing, both attacking and defending, that you want, it takes a lot of time. And I haven't actually come here saying, right, I'm gonna now start at the back and work forward. I've tried to look at both aspects of the game and uh try to maybe help uh with some advice and information with regard to our defending and our attacking.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Um we know that you can have you more than a few injury issues to it to deal with, some of them are sort of getting any better. It what's the squad looking like for uh for the weekend? Anybody back available that hasn't been?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

It's looking much better. I mean, when you talk about availability, we have to be careful because uh three players have come. If we take Ross McCrawy, I mean his injury we knew would not be a long-term one, so it's not surprising that he's back in contingency to play. But the other three that I've seen for the first time really, that's Rob Dickey and George George Tanner and Joe Williams, they've had long-term injuries and injuries which we have to be careful with that they don't reoccur. But it's really good to see them back in the fray, back back training, back available, but we'll have to be careful perhaps before we start throwing them in. It would be good to at least get a another period of time training with them before we do that. But of course, we are we are bare bones in certain areas of the of the club, the defending area, we are bare bones, so there is a chance that we are going to be asking Robin and uh George to come back a bit earlier than what we'd normally have liked.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

And and that, particularly I think at this time of the season for a a team that is not right up there or right down there, where it's an absolute imperative to get them out, it it's not an easy decision, is it? Because you they're desperate to play, but you don't want to set them back.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

No, they're all good questions, and uh you know you've actually summed it up better even than I could. I mean the fact is strangely enough, the there's much less mid-table football or or or meaningless games than they used to be, because now suddenly you can be sixth in the league and you can get promoted, and you can be 14 in the league, and you're still within touching distance of the sixth place. So things have changed a bit in that respect. There's there seems to be always something to play for, and I think at the moment, you know, the players want to want to impress me, so that gives them something to play for as well. They want to show actually we might not have won so many games as we would have liked to have done recently, but you know, we're we're good players and you know we want you to see us as good players. So I think I've not come across that yet. There's any feelings that, well, there's nothing we can do anymore. Uh that would be a difficult feeling to deal with if it crept in, and I don't know quite how I would do it.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Yeah, the bottom line is you know, football, any sport, it's more fun when you're winning, isn't it? And that those players will experience that as much, if not more, than anyone.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yeah, I'm afraid that um when you're in professional sport, fun comes from uh achieving, you know, and your enjoyment comes through the pursuit of excellence, really. You know, that that's that's where your enjoyment comes. And it's hard to find that enjoyment and that fun if unfortunately you look at the result after your performance and your game, and it's been a negative one, even though you might feel I performed well individually and the team performed well. The only way you can get the real enjoyment and satisfaction is if it brings brings results and brings point.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Next opportunity to do that is at Loftus Road at the other the weekend, another of the sort of the great old clubs and a team that have found a little bit of form in recent weeks.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

I believe so, yeah, I believe so. But for me at the moment every game's a tough one because I don't know the league well enough, I don't know the opponents well enough, um, and I'm also still um very interested to see what performances we can give, you know, how how well we do defend, how well we do attack. So it's there's so much for me to learn and and take from every game, and I'm probably in a different position to uh say Chris Wilder, who who was with me on Saturday, who's been in the league a long time and probably knows all the players, all the grounds, all the all all the quirks. Um I don't have that at the moment. It's it's much more of a naive approach, I suppose, in in the sense that it's new to me and I'm learning all the time one way or the other. Well, good looking test. Thank you very much. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Roy, can I just ask from a personal point of view? How much are you enjoying that challenge of something completely new? Because, like you say, you've been in the game a long time in this division, this is completely new to you. Are you enjoying that test?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Yes, I suppose I am, but I'm I'm enjoying it in the sense that it's given me a chance to work with the players and work on work on our play and what we're trying to do. So that's where at the moment the real enjoyment comes. For me, the the games are sometimes much more stressful in the sense that I don't know enough what we're likely to come up against, and we we our analysts here do a wonderful job and they they put it before me too. This is what it looks like, this is what Sheffield looked like, this is what Charles does, this is basically how they play. But I don't have games in the past to relate to well last time we played QEO, like so many coaches have, but I knew that. I mean, whenever you come into a new job, that's the way it is. It's uh the first period of time has always got to be trying to come to terms with your squad, making certain you get to know them a little bit more, working to try and find a way of putting that a team from that squad onto the field who are going to go on the field comfortable that we we know what we want to do here and we we trust each other to do it, and then the opponents, I suppose, they come in just as that nuisance value to test out how well the the players have assimilated uh any ideas that they might have themselves also about how the team needs to play.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

I guess with only what 10-11 days since you've had your first training session. I know when we spoke on your first press conference, you said give me a bit of time to kind of get to know the squad and what I make of it. Do you feel you have a better idea now of just what sort of well you learn quickly, it's a good question again.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

You learn quickly. Well to get what I would say the same sort of idea about the squad, the players, what they can do, what's needed, as I had said the last job Crystal Palace, that's good that that that's an impossibility within five weeks. I'd have been foolish if I'd have thought I'm gonna use the five weeks here, and by the end of that time or halfway through that time, I'll know all about them. So that's never been a never been a question, really. It's it's knowing enough and then making decisions as we go along as to whether or not we're doing the right thing with our team selection, whether we're doing the right thing in what we're asking the players.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

I just wanted to touch on a couple of individuals. I know you spoke very highly highly of Noah, Ayler on Saturday, um, and oh not Saturday, whatever day, of the weekend it was. Um, how impressed have you been with him because like you mentioned he's so new to the division himself as well?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Yeah, I it would it would take a long time this afternoon if I was to go through and go through the you know the good impressions that so many players have made on me. And I I did actually bring up the subject of Borges and and uh Ayer quite simply because that you know under normal circumstances with one fit, perhaps no one would have been speaking about those two as our two centre backs, and yet I've inherited them. You know, when I came in for the first game, there was no doubt that these are going to be our two centre backs, they're they're the ones we've got, and I've just been incredibly impressed by the way they've played the the last two games. You wouldn't have thought that these are deputising for injured players, you'd have thought they've got two very good centre backs, Bristol City.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

I wanted to ask you about um Sinclair Armstrong as well. We had a look at him on at Charlton. I just wonder what you've made of your first impression of him because I think everyone can see the talent he's got, and it's maybe not just quite converted into the goals that people.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

Well, he's he he he's new to he's new to the club, he he's obviously fighting finding his feet here at the club and in the league. He's he's certainly got qualities, there's no doubt about that. And I would say, like a lot of players, it's work in progress, and I think the troubles when players come into clubs, they come with certain reputations or certain uh hopes and expectations as a burden on their back, and sometimes it's very harsh for them to try and shake off that and for them to say, look, you know, it's all new for me here, I'm new new teammates, perhaps a new way of playing, I'm I'm I'm learning, I'm doing the best I can, and they just need to be given time. And you know, I I I don't have a strong opinion about anybody in the squad anyway, and I have an even less of an opinion about people who haven't had a chance to play yet, because you know, he he's entitled to say, Well, you're not you're not you don't have the right to say too much about my game because you've only given me 10 minutes on the field of play since you've been at the club. So but he's doing fine, he's fine, he's got qualities, there's no doubt about that.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

It's the first time we've been able to speak to you here as well at the High Performance Centre. I know you when you spoke to us at Ashton Gate, you mentioned how impressed you were with the facility. I guess when you came in, there's a lot of talk about Premier League ready from both Charlie and yourself and building up to that stage, I guess. How impressed have you been with the facilities you've had to work in as well?

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Well, I think I might have said at one of the other press conferences that you were at, I mean, I'm very impressed by the facilities. I would defy anybody to come in who's who's used to working at a football club and is used to going to training centres and and the stadium to to take control of a game. I would defy anybody to say that it's not first-class facilities here, absolutely first class. And there are you know many teams all all around the top leagues in Europe who will look at this and say, well that their facilities are better than ours. So really the club is doing absolutely everything it can to put the players in the best position to give a performance. The medical department and all the things they've got at their disposition or their disposal is as good as anything you're likely to see. The pitchers out there are wonderful, Ashton Gates are fantastic. So everything, I suppose, in place. It won't be a question we need to build a new training centre or we need to, you know, do our stadium up so it becomes at a decent level. That's already in place. And that's not always the case. You know, there are teams who've gone up into the premiership, they've had to spend a lot of money first of all on making certain their training facilities are up to scratch and that their stadium's up to scratch. No problems with that here. The problem here is a very simple one, shared by shared by at least how many teams are in the league? 24 teams in the league, so probably 90% of that 24, and then you could probably add another 15-20% from the teams behind, they want to get up in and search for the holy grail in the Premier League, because that's where the money is. But it's a hard, hard place to get there. But first of all, you've got to have the facility, you've got to have something to attract players to come to your club. And I'm sure that players who are being courted by Bristol City and brought down, you know, to see the the city and the stadium and the and the facilities here, they've got to be mightily impressed, and that's a that's a bonus for a kickoff. But then unfortunately, they've got to get a team together that can get you there.

SPEAKER_03 16:07

In terms of those conversations you've had, I think Charlie touched on it as well, trying to tap into your knowledge as well. I know you said the training time has been limited, but have you had those chances already to, I guess, interact with Charlie, the board, and kind of put across, I guess, your early thinking about where the club is?

SPEAKER_00 16:22

No, the answer to that's no. I mean, I've I haven't really seen the board because I don't, you know, by the time press conferences are finished after the game, they've all gone home, so I don't get up there. My wife has to take herself off from the from the director's box. Uh and as for Charlie, he's got plenty on his plate, so we don't we don't converse every day. I think you've got to divide this into two parts. Yeah, speak to me about what's it looking like at the moment, how the team doing, the injuries and so on, and all those other questions you've got about where Bristol City are going and how they're gonna get there and what their next plans are. Ask Charlie because I I don't know. Do I get involved? No. But I I I made it clear when I first came, when I spoke to him, that that if he did need to ask me a question or ask me to do something, I'd be happy to do it. But it's his job and it's his responsibility, and all I can do is wish him well with it. And in the meantime, try and be a good custodian of the club and its its current team for the period that I'm mandated to do that for. Thank you. I've tried it on too much longer.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Yeah, yeah, just a couple of couple. Um Loftus Road, one of the great stages of English football. What are you saying? Have you got any memories, any special memories of um I've got a good one.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

We've got a good one when in fact from Bristol City days. When Bobby Houghton and I we we hadn't been here long. I mean Bob came I think in September. Uh I think he came about, he might have come about eight or nine games into uh the second or the what was then the second division uh sojourn because Alan Dix had had left the club or been told to leave the club rightly on the wrong league. So Bob had come in about mid-September, and already we were at the bottom of the league after having plummeted from Division One. I came, I think, in early November, mid-November to join him here and to try, and again, we were still down the bottom of the league, not getting any closer. But of course, we were playing like Malner and Harmstead played or trying to, which involved us, you know, playing high up the field. It meant the back four playing high up the field so we could try and press with the midfield players and the forwards, and it also meant you know, not overdoing the build-up play from the back, but making certain we got the ball into wide areas and and crossed it for the forwards we wanted. But it was criticised a little bit in certain in certain quarters, not necessarily so much by the local Bristol press, but by more the national press, you know. And um so and Terry Venables had gone to QPR and they had a plastic pitch at the time, which everyone was criticising. It's not fair, they got a big advantage. When we come there, it's not the same, the ball bounces. So lots of criticism. But all I remember is Terry coming into the dress room before the game uh to speak to Bob, more so than to me. And he said, I've got I've got a proposition for you. Bob, what's what's that mean? He said, Whatever happens in the game, he said, in the press conference afterwards, you say nothing about our practice piece, and I won't criticize your tactics. So that's my one member QBM. Excellent. And the second one, find out, was was uh was just before I went back to to Palace in 2017. I was at the the Grenville Tower match that they had there, that very match that they organized to to make to make money, and I actually attended that then.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Right. Um you talked about uh earlier about naivety, about being naive in terms of the sort of current this current spell. Is that a is that a good thing or a bad thing?

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Well, I think the good thing about it is that you don't come with with um uh preconceived ideas and preconceived you know prejudices or or or judgments, you know. You come in naive isn't really the right word because naive is a bit uh pejorative. It's more a a case of you come in really yourself waiting to say, well, what have you got for me? This is what I got for you, but what have you got for me? And and that that involves everyone around the club, really, you know, the new coaches that you meet for the first time, the the people, the administrative people around the club, the players in particular. So I think it's quite nice in the sense that you come in with our preconceived ideas, and they hopefully will also give you a chance. They won't they won't start thinking, well, this isn't gonna work, or I don't think this is gonna be any good. They also come to it and say, Well, what have you got? And you give them hopefully what you think you've got, and you hope they're gonna give you back what they've got, and you hope that if if you're lucky, you you those those two things gel and you produce a team that can win football matches. But I know one thing about this squad of players, and even only after two games, this is this is a squad very um prepared and ready to embrace new things, to embrace a manager who comes in and to try and do what that manager wants and to work very hard at their game. Now that means it's a nice job for somebody.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Great. Just finally, um, have you been being able to get up to speed in terms of watching championship football like the because it's a topsy turbulence, it's such a topsy turbulence.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

It's a really good question, but the answer's no. And the reason is I've been I've had very long days, um very hard days for me, because I mean coming from retirement and the the calmness of that to the sort of intensity of the work and the hours, and to be honest, too, I'd have had to have been some sort of crazy person or or or some sort of maniac to have found the time after all that to suddenly start you know taking myself through reels and reels of footage. I haven't done that in and I think that's probably better that I haven't. Yeah. I mean, I think I've at least tried to keep myself to some extent fresh for what I I consider one thing important. When I come here in the morning at nine o'clock, that meeting I have with the staff, and then our preparation for what we're going to do in the training session, and the organization of that, getting that as as perfect as it can be, and then the performance that I can give on the training field with the players and get get from them, that's the next thing I find very, and then the meetings making certain that any ideas we have or anything we want to discuss together is as succinct as possible. So people don't have any misunderstanding. If I can get that part right in the five weeks, I should be more than satisfied with my time here.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Excellent. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

My pleasure.