England boss Roy Hodgson has known 23-man World Cup squad 'for a while'

 
Sorted: Late-season form won't alter Roy Hodgson's squad
Tom Dutton5 May 2014

England manager Roy Hodgson has revealed he has known for some time who will travel to the World Cup in his 23-man squad.

Hodgson is due to publicly name his squad on May 12, but admits his mind is already made up and late-season form won’t alter his picks.

Asked if he had mapped out the party who will travel to Brazil, the 66-year-old told the Football Association’s website: "I've known for a while.”

The former Liverpool boss has dismissed suggestion inexperienced players could worm their way into the side at this stage and, barring injury, intends to fall back on the players who helped England qualify for the finals.

"[We need] to come away from that somewhat, in my opinion, frivolous idea that a coach watches matches week after week - works with players over two years and 25 games and then in the last couple of games of the season goes to watch a match and suddenly finds a player that had not played any point."

Despite this, Hodgson revealed he is prepared to shun big names and blood some youngsters.

"It [Euro 2016] is in the back of my mind but not in the forefront," he said. "If there are young players in the squad it will be because they can do a job now.

"It will then be a bonus in 2016 as they will be experienced and hopefully that will serve us in good stead, but I don't intend to put them in the squad because of 2016."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT