Roy Hodgson has described as “purely irrelevant and dishonest” the criticisms of his tactics during Euro 2016 and insisted he did not regret his decision-making during a tournament that finished with England losing to Iceland for one of their more embarrassing results in history.

Hodgson said he had not watched the Iceland game again since his four-year tenure as England manager came to an end in humiliating circumstances, insisting that there was no point in him replaying it in his mind. “I consign it to history,” he said. “I don’t need to watch it, I have a perfectly good idea of what happened and why it happened.”

However, the 69-year-old said his time in charge should not be remembered for entirely negative reasons and launched an impassioned defence of his tactics, saying he rejected the criticisms that he had encountered – including the decision to make six changes for the Slovakia game, a 0-0 draw that meant England not winning their group.

“They are nonsense,” Hodgson said. “People should be ashamed of those things. Why shouldn’t Harry Kane take corners? If he happens to be the best striker of a ball in the team and gives you the best delivery, why shouldn’t he do it?

Gareth Southgate’s personal video nasty missed by England no-shows Read more

“And the ‘six’ changes are actually four changes from the team who were on the field at the end of the game against Wales. Questions would have been asked if I’d left out Jamie Vardy and Daniel Sturridge after they came on as substitutes at half-time and scored [against Wales]. What’s more, working with a squad of players, people would also ask why didn’t I give a chance to Jordan Henderson and Jack Wilshere, Ryan Bertrand and Nathaniel Clyne, who are four excellent players.”

In an interview with Big Issue, Hodgson added: “I was totally uninterested in those type of comments, which I regard as purely irrelevant and dishonest. No one whose opinion I respect would have said anything like that, otherwise I would have heard about it.

“I certainly didn’t feel suicidal and I certainly didn’t feel self-doubt either because I think probably the four years, especially the last two years after the World Cup, fashioning a team from a very young group of players, many of whom weren’t even in their club side, and playing the sort of football we were capable of playing – we were playing very, very well. I am very, very proud of that achievement. I think it is probably the best work, in many ways, that I did or have done so far. But of course, any work you do as a sporting person, a football coach or any coach, if it is good work you’ve got to have something – a championship – to show for it. We didn’t get that, quite the reverse. But I believe people who work within the game and inside sport realise what I did and certainly I got all sorts of messages from all sorts of important friends and acquaintances. So there was never any doubt I would collapse in any way with self-doubt.

“If anything, I think the experience makes you stronger. In football however well you think you are doing, however well your life is going, there is always a mugger there lurking in the shadows, to bash you over the head when you least expect it.”