Roy Hodgson appointed Fulham Manager

Well he's maybe not the most exciting appointment but there's no doubt Roy Hodgson has bags of experience. It's been a fairly depressing couple of days with no sign of an appointment being made and the realisation of exactly what a mess we're currently in really sinking home. My only real experience of Hodgson, as I'm sure is true for most English fans, was an ultimately disastrous period in charge in charge of Blackburn Rovers. I do know, however, that he is highly regarded throughout Europe and has had successful periods in charge of the Swiss national team (with whom he qualified for the '94 World Cup and the '96 European Championships) and Inter Milan.

I would have loved to see John Collins get the job had he also brought Jean Tigana along in a director of football role. Having scoured the message boards for news however, it appears whilst we did interview Collins, Tigana was not part of the deal. That would have meant replacing one unproven manager with another, which I don't think would be a good choice for us now.

It doesn't really matter what I think now, of course. Hodgson's got the job and if he's going to work the miracle that's needed to avoid relegation we're all going to need to get behind him and the team. We are exactly half way through the season with a paltry 14 points. Simple maths says that if we don't improve we'll be a long way short of the likely 40 points required to stay up. The only thing in our favour is that there are six other teams in the same boat. Hodgson's first target then is to gain another 26 points in the remaining 19 matches. If he can do that then he deserves the opportunity to take us on from there.

Ray Lewington gets one final game in charge against Birmingham at St. Andrews on Saturday. The Blues have found a bit of form under Alex McLeish and it's going to be another tough away game, but who knows, with nothing to lose and the new manager to impress maybe we can pull off an unlikely result.

Update: Interesting piece about Hodgson here > http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A30497916 from the BBC.