Roy Hodgson’s nomadic 48-year career in management took him around the world but has surely ended at the place he called home – Crystal Palace.

The drug of football that has been Hodgson’s lifelong addiction may well have been sampled for the last time with his departure from Selhurst Park amid fan disaffection and a drop towards the Premier League’s danger zone.

After he stepped down as manager with the club in 16th and, having been taken ill last week, surely it is time for English management’s elder statesman to finally hang up his tracksuit.

If Palace, Hodgson’s boyhood club, is to be the 76-year-old’s final port of call he can look back on a fine body of work, but one that proved he was more suited to clubs of a middling level rather than when his journey took him to the game’s highest places.

Hodgson’s desperate seven-month reign at Liverpool, along with a four-year tenure as England manager that included the rank embarrassment of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and the Euros in France two years later, are evidence of his limitations.

And yet, for all that, there are many clubs and supporters – particularly Fulham after he took them on a dream trip to the Europa League final in 2010 only to lose to Atletico Madrid in Hamburg – who have every right to offer grateful thanks to Hodgson’s excellent work.

Hodgson would not have lasted so long at the highest levels without vast knowledge, tactical acumen and the ability to achieve results that satisfied many.

Read Phil’s career retrospective piece on Hodgson in full here.

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