Well done Roy!

Most people in football have a huge amount of respect and admiration for West Brom boss Roy Hodgson. He has had a long and distinguished career which hit the buffers rather spectacularly at Liverpool earlier this season. His short time in charge at Anfield was little short of a disaster, with neither the fans, nor more importantly the players, seeming to buy in to his methods and ideas.

Mistakes

Although Roy could have done things differently and undoubtedly made mistakes along the way, I think he has a right to feel that some of the players let him down and that the fans never gave him a chance.

Yesterday, his relegation threatened West Brom side took on Liverpool in a game that was crucial for the three points it offered, but was important to Hodgson in so many more ways.

Deserved

The deserved 2-1 win his side achieved with two second half penalties after going a goal down must have been incredibly satisfying and cathartic for Hodgson. In keeping with his polite and calm manner, he denied that the win over his old club had any more meaning for him than any other win.

“I don’t take any particular pleasure in that victory. The great pleasure I take is beating Liverpool because it is not something West Brom do very often. I am more than satisfied, I am really happy with the performance. I thought apart from the first 15 minutes, we took the game to Liverpool and played some really good football. When we went a goal down, it was very much against the run of play but it was a great achievement for the players to put that behind them and score two goals.”

That’s very humble of you Roy, but I’m afraid we don’t believe you!

Shouting

Hodgson surely must have felt like running around the pitch and shouting at the top of his voice. Nobody could have blamed him if he had. He is, of course, too civilised, conservative and sensible to have done so, but I bet that nice little bottle of red tasted a whole lot sweeter last night when he got to the privacy of his own home.

I have nothing against Liverpool and I think that they were right to let Hodgson go and that Kenny Dalglish is the right person to take them forward. Despite that, I was really pleased by the result and wanted to say well done to Roy.