Football: can Hodgson save Crystal Palace?
Since the Football League was founded in 1888, 2,475 teams have started a season in England’s top flight, said Oliver Holt in The Mail on Sunday. But not one of them has started as badly as Crystal Palace have this season. Not only have they lost their first five matches, but they have failed to score a single goal. Their most recent defeat – Saturday’s 1-0 loss to Southampton – came just four days after former England coach Roy Hodgson was appointed manager, putting an abrupt end to his “honeymoon period”. At 70, he is the oldest manager ever to take charge at a Premier League club – and he will hope he lasts longer than his predecessor, Frank de Boer, who was sacked last week after just 77 days in the job.
De Boer was only in charge for four matches, said Joe Hare in The Times – the shortest reign in Premier League history. Yet it’s “remarkable” he even lasted that long. As early as the first day of the season, when Palace lost 3-0 to Huddersfield, the club’s owners realised that employing the Dutchman had been “a serious, expensive error”. De Boer was simply unprepared for “the demands of the Premier League”, said Dominic Fifield in The Guardian. Having previously managed Ajax and Inter Milan, he insisted on playing with just three men at the back and promoted “a game forged on possession and patient build-up”. That’s all very well if your players are up to it, but much of the Palace squad was “uneasy” with the approach. Still, the owners had hired de Boer precisely because they sought a “change in style” – and they couldn’t expect him to turn things around overnight. That’s why we need a transfer window for managers, said Liam Rosenior in the same paper. If there were a set period when they were safe in their jobs, they would be spared the speculation that chips away at their authority. And it would force the people that run a club to take responsibility for appointments, ensuring “bad results don’t just land at the manager’s feet”.
If appointing de Boer was a gamble, then hiring Hodgson is “the footballing equivalent of a comfort blanket”, said Julian Bennetts in The Sunday Telegraph. Born a mile from Palace’s ground, he is a natural fit for the club. Hodgson’s high-profile calamities – namely England’s defeat to Iceland at Euro 2016 – have overshadowed his achievements: during his time in Sweden and Denmark, for instance, he won eight league titles. And, most auspiciously for Palace, he has led two Premier League clubs to survival: Fulham in 2008 – “the most remarkable escape” the league has seen – and West Brom in 2012. But with matches against Chelsea and the two Manchester clubs due, Palace risk becoming the first Premier League side to lose their opening eight games. This could be Hodgson’s biggest challenge yet.