Crystal Palace v Newcastle: Roy Hodgson backs 'football's 'dad's army'
GETTY Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson backed football's 'dad's army'
Palace's boss goes against Newcastle's Rafa Benitez today with a combined age of 127 years of experience standing on the touchline. Both clubs are in desperate need of points, with Palace just three above the bottom three and Newcastle just one behind. Former England boss Hodgson, 70, has worked wonders at Palace since taking over and believes his years honed managing clubs around the world has helped. Same goes for Benitez. He said: “There is still room for experienced managers in football. We are experienced managers but we are also coaches as well. “Newcastle's success and the way Rafa managed to turn the club around is not just down to his managerial skills or his recruitment skills alone. "I am sure it was also due to the fact he worked hard with the players in training and tried to get them to understand his ideas on team play in the same way we have done here.
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There is still room for experienced managers in football Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez
"Experience can be an added bonus, but it is not purely down to experience that they have done well. It is also down to the fact they have a manager who works with the team and encourages them to play organised football both when they have the ball and when they don't have it. "That's where experience can be a help in the fact it can often mean that you maintain humility or don't get carried away or too despondent if a result doesn't go your way and you can hopefully see a bigger picture ahead and put performances and results in the right perspective, because it is possible to win games even when the team is not doing very well or playing very well or you are getting a lot of luck on your side. "It is also possible to act conversely where you lose a couple of games when you have not played that badly. “The Tottenham and Newcastle games were early examples of that, we lost 1-0 but our performances were far better than could be expected of a bottom of the table team and I was able to capitalise on that, whereas when you are younger, the result can affect you and you can fail to see the positives. "It's also a two-edged sword. You have to be careful because the talented young coaches won't get a job because everyone (like me and Rafa) is working.
GETTY Newcastle boss Rafa Benitez didn't get many transfer in January