Roy’s fear over youngsters is fading fast

Roy Hodgson believes that one of his biggest worries about the potential squad for Brazil has now been solved.

The England manager admits he was concerned six months ago that he’d be taking upwards of half-a-dozen young players who were not in their club’s first-team because they were being blocked by foreign imports.

Now, with qualification secure, Hodgson is convinced that all the youngsters in his plans will force themselves into their teams regularly over the next seven months.

“It was certainly a concern a few months ago, but it seems to be changing,” says Hodgson. “Of course it would bother me if players suddenly disappeared off the club scene.

“But I don’t envisage it happening. These are top youngsters and they’re all going to get games.

“Danny Welbeck is in the Manchester United side ahead of Nani and Antonio Valencia, and Kyle Walker has nailed down that right-back spot at Spurs. Andros Townsend is keeping some very expensive signings out at Tottenham.

“The only thing that worries me about Andros is that suddenly, from being a player who has been loaned out nine times, some people now think he’s a world hero in the same class as Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery!”

Hodgson feels that because the pool he’s choosing from is deeper than he expected, he might be able take more factors into account as he finalises his 23.

“The ability to be a good tourist certainly comes into it,” he says. “At least I’ve got more previous knowledge from when I picked my Switzerland squad for the USA World Cup. None of them had ever been to a tournament before.

“You would still select more on what they can do on the field rather than off it, but there is definitely an argument that all 23 players are unlikely to play.

“So, are there places for youngsters or good tourists? I don’t know how we’ll approach that yet. With Switzerland I was desperate to choose what I thought was the next best person to cover every position.

“What I should have done is to have chosen the 17 or 18 who would play, giving me four spots for either youngsters or a couple of very good guys who had helped us qualify.”

Hodgson has already been giving considerable thought to two aspects of tournament football that have traditionally given England problems fatigue and boredom.

“A recurring theme for all coaches at tournaments is how they’re going to occupy the players,” he says. “At Euro 2012, we tried something very different by staying in Krakow and that worked reasonably well, but we’ll never completely solve the conundrum.

“I’m sure that we are livelier and fresher now than we will be after a long, intense Premier League season. You just have to deal with that and make certain that we give our players as good a chance as possible to rest.”