Like many of the great football bosses - Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, Tommy Hafey - Roy Hodgson was only a moderately performed player.

He failed to play a first-team game at Crystal Palace and thereafter hacked around in non-League ranks, with Tonbridge, Gravesend and Northfleet, and Maidstone United, where he had his first taste of life in the dugout as assistant manager.

But from these modest environs, the new Liverpool boss quickly made his mark after switching to management in his late 20s.

Some new followers of the game might assume Hodgson's achievement in taking Fulham to the Europa League final this season, where it lost to Diego Forlan's Atletico Madrid, was the pinnacle of his career to date.

Impressive as that run was, accounting for Juventus and 2009 German champion Wolfsburg along the way, the 62-year-old from Croydon on London's south-east fringes has a record of coaching excellence stretching back four decades.

He has won league titles in Sweden with Halmstad and Malmo, and in Denmark with Copenhagen, led Internazionale to a UEFA Cup final and the Swiss national team to the knockout stages of the World Cup finals in 1994 and to qualify for the 1996 European Championships in England.

The much-travelled Hodgson has also managed Bristol City, Grasshoppers of Zurich and Udinese. In all, he has coached 12 clubs in six countries, including two spells at Inter, with stints in charge of three national teams (Switzerland, UAE and Finland) thrown in.

The only major blot on an otherwise exemplary CV came during his 18-month tenure at Blackburn.

He did well in his first season, 1997-98, taking Rovers to sixth in the table and a UEFA Cup berth.

But having spent close to $40 million on players in the close season, poor buys, injuries and dressing room unrest led to a disastrous start to the season and Hodgson was sacked before Christmas with Rovers at the foot of the table.

His time at Blackburn seemed to detract from his previous achievements and he went back to Scandinavia and the Middle East to enjoy more success before restoring his reputation for sound, no-nonsense and successful management at Craven Cottage.

There remains, however, a suspicion that for all his technical and tactical prowess, Hodgson is not quite showbiz enough to lead a big team to glory, that for all his training-ground and match-day acumen - he has been a standout among the BBC guest pundits at the World Cup finals in South Africa - he is not the big personality to marshall a bunch of Premier League bigheads back to the domestic and European glory the Merseyside fans still reckon theirs by right.

Will the big names want to come and play for Roy who failed at the Rovers, in the same way that they would if the Special One or Sir Alex, or Kev and Kenny in their heyday, came calling?

Inspiring middling teams in Scandinavian outposts to trophies is one thing, speaking half a dozen languages and possessing a well-earned reputation for thoughtfulness, diplomacy and all-round decency are another.

But motivating and keeping fit a bunch of moody millionaires to perform at peak levels for almost 10 months is a tricky business that no amount of Uefa and Fifa technical badges and a well-thumbed passport can help you with.

Look at Diego in South Africa. Cannot coach to save himself (though, why would you expect to him to; how do you pass on genius?) but his team is looking the goods and much of it has to do with the force of Maradona's personality, drawing the exceptional talents of Messi et al around him and giving them the freedom to turn it on. Who needs a game plan when you are Maradona?

Turning Liverpool around is a quite different proposition. Trophyless for four years, the last of its 18 league titles won 20 years ago. Since its epic Champions League win in Istanbul the side has gone nowhere, slipping outside the top four last season. The fans, still harking to the glory years of the 70s and 80s, demand more.

The team will definitely need an injection of fresh talent, and Hodgson will have to consider his buying and selling options.

Would he be so bold as to sacrifice Gerrard or Torres to fund a raid on the transfer market? Probably not the skipper, but he might potentially offload the Spaniard; sell him back to Rafa at Inter, to free some cash for some new talent.

Hodgson has not proved a great horse trader in the past, not in the manner of Harry Redknapp for instance, as his time at Blackburn showed. Rather, he is good at taking underperforming teams and making them better, much better. Fulham, remember, was facing the drop when he took over three years ago.

Actually, although those Liverpool fans still clinging to the wonder years might not like to hear it, Liverpool FC in 2010 might be the ideal project for a man of Roy's talents.

He brings a wealth of experience and know-how to the job. The challenge will be to rally this group of Liverpool players around him, not by force of his personality or great playing deeds, but with his unquestionable footballing expertise and meticulous approach.

As former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy, who played under Hodgson at Fulham, says of his former manager: "The manager doesn't sprinkle magic dust on us. The manager and his staff work damn hard to make sure the lads know their jobs. He does his research on players and the mentality of players who come into the club. He is a manager who organises his team well."

Such a work ethic would have fitted in well in the old Liverpool boot room. It remains to be seen whether it can have the desired effect in the new era of cosmopolitan glitz and unbridled ego that pervades modern Premier League dressing rooms.