Hodgson has defended his players against the fans’ criticism

boss

Roy Hodgson

accepts the criticism over his side’s poor performance, but he refuses to see lack of ambition as the reason behind their poor performance.

Here is what he said when reporters asked his opinion about the banner from the fans about ambition and pride:

"I didn't see it, I don't think it was up for very long. I heard about it. It's not something that you can encourage.

"Our fans have been very good through the years so for them to do something like this is not something that one can be happy about.

"When you give a couple of performances like the last two, which have been way below what we expect of ourselves, you expect the fans to react and be critical of the performances.

"I would deny, of course, that it's a lack of interest or desire on the part of the players.

"We can't deny that we haven't played well enough to get the results in the game but that's a fact of life.

"I see every day here on the training field how hard people work and how much they do want to do well.

"Of course, when it doesn't go well I'm afraid you open yourselves up to all sorts of criticism of that nature."

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