Manager Roy Hodgson has offered an upbeat New Year’s message to England’s success-starved fans, explaining how he hopes his team will be a “serious competitor” for the UEFA Euro 2016 title.
At the end of another year of anticlimax for England supporters following the swift FIFA World Cup exit, Hodgson was in good cheer as he enthused about his side’s promising post-Brazil revival.
“I am looking forward to seeing the team qualify for France in 2016,” Hodgson told the Football Association’s Web site on Monday as he reflected on his squad’s 100 percent winning start to their Euro 2016 qualifying campaign. “I want to continue to play my part in helping the players on the path that they are on — the path to becoming better in every aspect of their game and better at becoming a team, which in 2016 will hopefully be as a serious competitor when we get to France.”
After failing to clamber out of the group stages in Brazil, Hodgson’s young side have shown signs of encouraging development, having won all six of their matches — international friendlies and Euro 2016 Group G qualifiers — this season.
“I’m looking forward to the games we will play and hopefully keeping our winning run going,” Hodgson said. “I’m also looking forward to seeing the team qualify for the finals in France. Most importantly, I’m looking for a constant progression for us to be a better team at the end of 2015 than we are at the start of it.”
“We’re a good team now, but we want to be even better,” he said. “The experiences we gained during the course of this year will help us — coaching staff and players.”
England’s next game is against Lithuania in a Euro 2016 qualifier in March at Wembley Stadium in London, but Hodgson has arranged for the players to meet up at the end of next month to review their latest win over Scotland and to look ahead to next year.
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