Roy Hodgson: 'Sir Alex Ferguson is a magician'

England coach Roy Hodgson has labelled Sir Alex Ferguson as a "magician" after he guided Manchester United to their 20th Premier League title earlier this week.

The Red Devils secured the landmark by beating Aston Villa 3-0 at Old Trafford on Monday night to regain their crown with four games to spare.

The success marks Ferguson's 13th league championship with United, and Hodgson has heaped praise on the Scot.

"It is incredible, the most incredible thing is being able to do it, year after year," Hodgson told Sky Sports News. "There is no doubt there is a certain lack of appetite that comes with winning things, it is very difficult to be as hungry for your second title as you were for your first so it must be even harder for your 25th title, or whatever it is if we take all Alex's titles together.

"And we are talking about someone with incredible ability and an incredible ability to keep himself fresh, just how many teams has he rebuilt? His teams have won 13 league titles and goodness knows how many cups, so there is not much we can say really other than we would all like to know how he does it and we would all like to know the secret.

"And if we talk about magic in football the only magicians I know are people like Sir Alex Ferguson who year after year keep producing incredible performances from his teams and players and keeps building teams from the ashes of the previous teams."

Ferguson took charge of United in 1986.