Matt Maher: Returning Hodgson cannot kick the managerial addiction

To begin to understand why, at the age of 74, the former Albion, Liverpool and England boss has accepted another ride on the carousel, those words are as good a starting point as any.

Hodgson is a football addict who cannot kick the habit. Despite having little left to prove after experiencing a career the like of which most who ever stand in the dugout can only dream, when the Watford came calling he just couldn’t say no.

Even at a club hardly adverse to springing a shock, his appointment as Claudio Ranieri’s replacement could certainly be categorised as a surprise.

Except, perhaps, to those who know him. For all that his departure from boyhood club Crystal Palace last summer might have been viewed as a curtain call, that is certainly not the way Hodgson saw it. On the contrary, he had been keen to stay on at Selhurst Park and it is telling, particularly so now, how the word ‘retirement’ was never uttered at the time. Hodgson was keen to keep the door slightly open, in the hope he be offered a route back in. This week, Watford obliged.

There will be some questioning the sanity of a man now nearly a decade past retirement age stepping back into the pressure cooker of a Premier League relegation battle.

Of course, it would be naive to think the offer of a £1million bonus should he keep the Hornets up didn’t help sway the decision.

But more than anything Hodgson’s return provides an insight into the psychology of those who operate at the top level of sport, a mindset those of us on the outside can never completely appreciate.

Steve Bruce, another manager to have enjoyed a lengthy career, once compared the profession to a ‘sickness’. You know it probably isn’t good for you but you just can’t help yourself. Even the bad times are enjoyable, sometimes more so.

“The suffering never stops – that’s the problem. If anything, it gets worse,” said Hodgson in 2018. “You learn to harden yourself towards it but, the longer you are in, it isn’t something you can give up lightly. Even if you’re not winning, it is possible to derive some satisfaction from the fact you are working properly.”

In the 46 years since Hodgson took his first step into management with Halmstads, coaching has become his life, the thing which makes him feel most alive.

Is that sad? Well, maybe a little. Yet in an increasingly cynical age and in a sport when the focus feels forever to be on finding the next big thing, there is something heartening about Hodgson’s endurance and hunger.

Not that this is a story which should be dripping with sentiment. Hodgson for one would not appreciate it. He is certainly no fool and neither does he suffer them. Perhaps the most important point in all is that he is back in the game primarily because he is very good at what he does. Sure, those high-profile failures with England and at Liverpool will always linger but when it comes to turning round the fortunes of clubs who find themselves near the foot of the Premier League his record is exemplary.

Palace, who sat bottom of the table with no points and no goals after four matches when he joined in September 2017, were the latest to benefit. Prior to that it was Fulham and, of course, the Baggies who got to witness his work first hand.

Significantly all three clubs could be classified as Premier League strugglers and it was Hodgson who laid the foundations for consolidation and growth in the top flight.

Watford, with their 15 managers in 10 years, might be ridiculed in some quarters as a basket case. But the hiring of Hodgson might well prove to be a shrewd move. The number of raised eyebrows from neutral observers might well have been exceeded by the concerned glances at rival clubs in the relegation dogfight. His appointment feels eminently more sensible than Vitor Pereira at Everton, for instance.

There are some parallels to be drawn with Hodgson’s arrival at The Hawthorns in February, 2011. Back then, at least nationally, he was seen as something of a laughing stock after his short, painful reign at Anfield.

Yet for the Baggies he proved the ideal fit and his appointment a masterstroke. There is a simplicity to this methods – the steady diet of 11v11 training sessions – which perhaps did not make him suitable for the likes of Liverpool. At Albion they were tremendously effective, helping to improve players and ensuring several went on to enjoy lengthy Premier League careers they might otherwise not have had.

Watford are now hoping he can work the same magic again in their hour of need. You really wouldn’t bet against it.