Rio Ferdinand Axed By Roy Hodgson

Rio Ferdin­and

Long serving Manchester United stal­wart Rio Ferdin­and is fa­cing the end of his long and dis­tin­guished in­ter­na­tional ca­reer. After rep­res­ent­ing the coun­try of his birth on 81 oc­ca­sions, the seasoned cent­ral de­fender has been axed from the 2012 European Cham­pi­on­ships squad by newly ap­poin­ted Three Lions man­ager Roy Hodgson.

Roy Hodg­son: “The foot­ball reas­ons are quite simple. I wanted seven back play­ers: Three centre backs, with Phil Jones in the squad, es­pe­cially when Kyle Walker was no longer a pos­sib­il­ity, be­cause Jones can play right back or centre half and I have been im­pressed with him. So I de­cided on my three centre backs and Rio Ferdin­and wasn’t one of them. I ad­mire Ferdin­and, but as a man­ager you have to make de­cisions some­times. I will stand by that and hope that the play­ers that I have chosen, will not let me down.”

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