Hodgson leaves selection door open

Roy Hodgson says he will not hold the performance of past England teams against players as he prepares to pick his Euro 2012 squad.

The departing West Brom manager will announce his 23-man squad on Wednesday afternoon ahead of the tournament in Poland and Ukraine which starts on June 8.

England’s more experienced players are likely to predominantly feature over the less capped individuals, with few surprises expected.

Hodgson insisted the players that helped the side qualify for the tournament in the first place will take first rule, whilst not losing faith in those that had failed to perform at the World Cup two years ago.

“It has been interesting taking over a squad of players that has qualified for the tournament and done extremely well to qualify for the tournament under another manager,” Hodgson said.

“I have tried to keep things in mind there and try to put together a squad which I think is capable of doing well in the tournament.

“And giving players also a chance perhaps to show that they are as good a player as we believe they were in the previous tournaments, when maybe the team has not gone quite as far as we hoped they would go.”

After being named the new England boss at the beginning of the month, the 63-year-old admitted it was difficult to juggle West Brom’s final games of the season with the task of picking his squad for Euro 2012.

“It has been a whirlwind. It has not been easy to balance the two things,” he said.

“It is one thing to say you are going to be fully professional and say you are going to keep your mind focused on your job at West Brom.

“But when you have just been given the England job and you know the Euros are coming up it is almost inhuman if you can balance it and I’m very grateful to the players that they have balanced themselves.

“Even though I’m afraid our goalkeeper let us down a bit (on Sunday), otherwise the players have done a remarkable job and kept West Brom’s heads above water.

“It has been a remarkable season and now I’m looking forward to the next job and that is going to be an even more interesting and complicated one.”