‘Roy might be 70 but he’s not stepped back’
James Tomkins explains to Andrew Fifield how evergreen Hodgson has revitalised Crystal Palace
There are blue skies over Crystal Palace’s training ground, smoke is billowing from a nearby barbecue and not even the threat of a soaking from an errant sprinkler can dampen James Tomkins’s spirits.
For the first time in over eight months, Tomkins can afford to relax. The stress of a campaign which began with seven straight defeats and no goals scored ends with a home match against West Bromwich Albion tomorrow which could secure Palace a top-half finish. “Implausible” does not begin to do it justice although, for Tomkins, the overwhelming feeling is relief rather than joy.
“It’s lovely now but it’s been difficult,” he says, stretching out on a chair. “I try and keep whatever troubles we have on the pitch to myself and not take it home to my family. But it’s always at the back of your mind.”
A pause. “But even though we started so badly, I never felt we were in serious, serious trouble.”
There is a simple explanation for that. The appointment of Roy Hodgson in September might not have prompted street parties in south London, the memory of England’s Euro 2016 exit unfairly obscuring his impressive body of work at club level, but his steadying influence was exactly what was needed for a club scrabbling to regain their sense of self in the wake of Frank de Boer’s chaotic 77-day reign as manager.
“He didn’t hide away from the fact that we were in a pretty bad situation,” Tomkins recalls. “He told us how it was, what we needed to do to put it right and got to work on it.
“He keeps things simple. There is focus on team shape, attacking as a team and defending as a team, making sure we are disciplined in key moments, and we have a lot of meetings where we discuss things.
“Everything is very focused and training varies depending on who the opposition is – so we prepare to play Arsenal in a very different way to Burnley, for example. It sounds simple, but sometimes that’s all you need.”
Hodgson’s energy took his players by surprise. A manager who is 71 in August not only braves a tortuous daily commute from his Richmond home – even if Ray Lewington, his assistant, often does the driving – but is still resolutely hands-on at training. His relaxed manner also helped ease the tensions in a squad which had struggled to warm to the eccentric – or, as one source close to the club put it, “weird” – De Boer.
“He wants to be involved in everything,” Tomkins said. “You might have thought a man of his age would want to take a step back but that’s not the case – he does the main part of training every day.
“Roy’s experience means he knows how to deal with footballers. Managers can’t ever keep everyone happy but not many others I have worked with have done it better than Roy. Even people who aren’t in the side feel they are part of what we’re doing. Sometimes that just comes from having a word with the injured lads if they’re doing rehab, or saying hello to people who work around the training ground.”
Tomkins – a peripheral figure under De Boer – is Hodgson’s sort of player: understated, composed and every inch the model professional. The 29-year-old prefers his creature comforts in his native Essex to a flashier pad in London. And while most footballers react to even routine wins with a blizzard of emoji-laden tweets, Tomkins lives in social media exile. He has long since deleted his Twitter account and do not expect an egregious Instagram selfie if Palace extend their unbeaten run to seven games tomorrow: his last post was in 2016.
“I try and keep away from it,” he says. “People get sucked into it – writing, responding to things and reading what people are saying about you. I just wanted to focus on football.” A smart move. This has been the most impressive season of Tomkins’s career, helped by staying injury-free since November, and it is surprising – given the paucity of options for Gareth Southgate – that he has not had an England summons.
Tomkins concedes that
‘There’s absolutely no reason why we can’t do a Burnley next season’
international honours are never far from his thoughts but he would rather extol the virtues of others than himself – hence his passionate defence of Mamadou Sakho, his central-defensive partner, and alongside whom he has never tasted defeat, and the mercurial Wilfried Zaha.
“People accuse him of diving, but that’s wrong – defenders are out to get him because he is so good. It can be a bit demoralising in training when he’s taking you on every five minutes. He’s matured massively.”
Keeping Zaha will be key in Palace riding their momentum into next term, and ending their corrosive habit of allowing best-laid plans to be shredded by close seasons. In two of the past four years, Palace have started the summer with one manager only to end it with another, and paid an inevitable price.
“The club needs stability,” Tomkins said. “It was a big shock when Sam Allardyce left [last May], so it’s important we keep things steady. Burnley have showed what can be done and there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t be able to do that.
“Every club from eighth down has been involved in the relegation battle at some point, so it shows how close everyone is to each other. We want to be pushing for a European spot but first we don’t want to be looking down. It’s time we were looking up.”