If I close my eyes, I could swear we are still in 2021. Roy Hodgson is leaving (or not), Wilfried Zaha is leaving (or not), loads of the squad are out of contract and Eberechi Eze has just received his first England call up
Needless to say I really hope the Achilles tendon snapping is definitely the one thing that will not be happening again!
One way or another it is shaping up to be another close season of uncertainty and change at Selhurst Park. Whilst that is not ideal, I have concluded that after 10 years in the Premier League if the chaos works for us I am just going to have to get used to it and enjoy it!
I want to start with the manager. Although I was very sorry to see Patrick Vieira depart, bringing in Roy Hodgson ended up being a masterstroke. It was disappointing to watch our quality on the pitch decline over the first four years of Roy’s tenure as the quality of our players declined. I always felt it was unfair that Roy was blamed for the pragmatic football we served up, especially as he comfortably kept us up every year he was in charge.
Roy’s return enabled us to answer the question of how would he had would have done had the quality of the squad been maintained. Pretty damn well is the answer. Just to see the turn around in Eze’s performances would be enough but Roy and Ray’s man management and simplification of the tactics has improved more or less every one of the playing squad. The past ten years has shown that a “ managerial project” is a fantasy when you are potentially dicing with relegation every season so I would give the job to Roy for as long as feels like doing it, even it’s just for another year.
We are clearly looking at another potential squad overhaul given the number of players out of contract. If the rumours are correct the overhaul may not be as big as it might be with new contracts being dished out to Joel Ward, Nathaniel Clyne and James Tomkins. If this is tied in with keeping Roy I can see the sense in this. Why spend lots of money replacing players now when they are still doing a perfectly good job? With the sad but inevitable departure of Luka Milivojevic and Jimmy Mac, there should be more money to spend and hopefully a squad overhaul will be downgraded to some judicious additions targeted at better depth at full back and depth and quality in the striker area.
The biggest question of course is what happens with Wilf. There is no doubt that his departure would be a huge loss and I hope he stays but the period since Roy has returned has shown that we can survive without him.
I am hoping we have moved on from our survival being dependent on him to a position where we are better with him in the team but we are not doomed to be relegation fodder without him. If Wilf does not stay he will of course go with every right-minded Palace supporter’s blessing. Together with Steve Parish (more on him below) he is primarily responsible for getting us into the Premier League, keeping us there for ten years and potentially leaving a legacy of Premier League security without him. The new mural is fantastic but one day I would like to see an expanded Selhurst Park with a Wilfried Zaha stand.
Having now hit the tenth anniversary of our promotion to the Premier League and having successfully secured our eleventh year of top-flight football, I want to take my hat off to Steve Parish, Dougie Freedman and the rest of the club management team for the fantastic job they have done.
Although Palace’s Premier League stay has felt more chaotic and often more hand to mouth than we would have liked, the fact is we are still in the top flight and little by little things are being improved. Much as we would have liked our unprecedented success over the past ten years to result in trophies and European tours, life is not always like that.
Steve Parish does not have a seamless master plan for world football domination worked out but he loves this club and has got nearly every big decision right. He has also been big enough to admit and correct the mistakes he has made. I see no prospect of the juggling and plate spinning which has constituted the thirteen years since CPFC 2010 took over the club stopping any time soon. The complexities of the ownership structure remains an issue and it is a credit to Parish that he has managed to make it work as well as he has.
The end result is I think the best we can hope for is a continuation of the pattern of gradual improvements in the squad and club infrastructure. That progress is inevitably slower and more sporadic than we would like but I have come to the conclusion that if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.
At a time when some big clubs with European and top flight trophies in their cabinet have been relegated, I am fine with the slow and steady progress we are making.
