With Liverpool having already won the group and Utrecht having no chance of qualifying for the next round last night's game was a dead duck. Although this resulted in a tedious, dull match Hodgson insisted there were positives to take from it.
"It was a useful exercise. Don't forget this is a team who are very, very short of match practice. Even the senior players have played so few matches. There were a lot of young ones in there playing maybe only their second or third match in the first team," he told reporters after the match.
"One or two of those have been away from home and, with respect, it's a different kettle of fish having the courage and ability to go out and play at Anfield in front of nearly 40,000 very expectant, optimistic and enthusiastic fans. It takes a lot of doing.
"There were definitely some positives, but it wasn't a classic. Nil-nils never are and this was unfortunately a typical nil-nil - like they did in Napoli and Steaua, Utrecht played deep and kept the ball well.
"In particular, the positives were with one or two of the young players, like Wilson for example, who I thought did very well. Kelly was another one, Pacheco did quite well when he came on, and Brad Jones also kept a clean sheet in only his second game.
"In that respect, we got something out of it and we finished top of the group on points.
"The other real, real positive is that by reneging on my first idea to play with Torres and Reina, apart from Sotirios Kyrgiakos and Martin Skrtel, I have got a totally fresh team to play on Saturday against Fulham."