A furious Roy Hodgson expressed his anger over what he described as “betrayal akin to Aldrich Ames”, followed by “Look it up. Maybe even read a book once in a while. You kids don’t know you’re born”, after pictures emerged of him holding a scrap of paper with a possible England line-up scribbled on it.
Mischievous photographers at England’s open training session on Tuesday morning managed to capture the perfidious image using new-fangled camera gadgetry called ‘zoom lens’. The said paper scrappage seemed to suggest a starting berth for Harry Kane as well as severe difficulties in spelling the name ‘Smalling’.
Hodgson was riled by the fact that the media had taken the treacherous step of reporting on a training session that was open to the media. He went as far as to describe the actions as “espionage” and even aimed his secret pen gun at the snapper in question. Luckily for all concerned it was just a normal biro.
“I thought that the Cold War was over but obviously not for some people,” the England coach grumbled whilst searching for an ejection button under his chair. He only succeeded in lowering his seat little and pretending he meant it.
“When I invited reporters to watch the side train the last thing I expected was that they’d report back on what they saw. Is this the kind of world we live in now?
“Simply because I wave the starting XI about in front of invited photographers, they’re suddenly going to take photographs of it? Did Benedict Cumberbatch die for this?”
Doubts remain as to whether the listed names were in fact the planned formation or simply a clever ruse. It is thought that no one in Hodgson’s position could possibly be quite that naïve and he was in fact bluffing the media.
Also the scrawled team included Andros Townsend and therefore couldn’t possibly be real.
