Saints goalkeeping coach Dave Watson helped Roy Hodgson deliver a pre-recorded video address to his England players during the international break.

Hodgson, a big believer in team spirit, was keen to plug the four-month gap between international fixtures by gathering his players at St George's Park at the end of January, but Premier League clubs vetoed the idea, so the manager sought alternatives.

After consulting performance analysis manager Andy Scoulding, the 67-year-old decided to send a video to the players analysing their recent games for England.

In a video file sent to the players' tablets, coaches Gary Neville, Watson and Ray Lewington offered constructive criticism with voice-overs in five-minute clips of players' performances and there was an opening address by Hodgson too.

When Hodgson meets with his squad on Monday, he will ask them whether they thought it was a good idea.

''If we do get a good feedback then it is certainly something we could use again,'' the England manager said.

''It was an idea you have to give Andy Scoulding most credit for.

''The videos were about 5-7 minutes long. We divided the videos up into five categories, maybe even six, try to be very specific to the principles for that type of position, the things we've been working on, the things we want to bring with them.

''I did an introduction to each of these videos, obviously it is the same introduction because we are talking about the principles concerned, and then Gary and Ray did a talk-over on the actual clips that we sent.''

Hodgson has no idea at present whether any of the players watched the videos.

''There probably is a way of checking but I don't want to start doing the Sherlock Holmes thing,'' he said.

Hodgson used to meet his players over the winter when he was in charge of Switzerland, but he conceded Premier League clubs were not as willing to release their players from their busy winter schedules.

He said: ''If was fairly obvious to me when I started to research it that the clubs were not really that keen on the idea of players meeting up like that as it affected their training schedule, and I fully understood that so we chose a different route.

''We sent videos to their iPads and got our message across.

''I'm happy we have sent it out.''

Modern technology caught Hodgson's captain Wayne Rooney out last week after the Sun published a video of the striker being knocked to the floor by his former team-mate Phil Bardsley during a sparring session in the skipper's kitchen.

Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has refused to comment on the matter and Hodgson kept his counsel at the announcement of his squad for the games against Lithuania and Italy on Thursday.

''I think I will adopt the same approach and say I have absolutely nothing to say on the subject,'' Hodgson said.

When pressed on the matter, and Rooney's shadow-boxing celebration which poked fun at the outcry which followed the video, Hodgson said: ''The celebration was one way that Wayne decided to take some sting out of the situation and good luck to him. I thought it was a clever celebration.

''It showed where the situation or incident ranked in his list of priorities. Certainly his performance against Tottenham was fantastic and if he can produce anything like that for England in the next two games I will be very happy.''