There's panic in the air. This relegation battle is leading to some strange decisions, none more so than at Crystal Palace with the return of Roy. twoht is struggling to see the bright side.
It doesn’t take much to imagine the look of surprise on Roy Hodgson’s face when the telephone rang. “Hello Roy, it’s Steve here. We’ve got ourselves into a bit of a pickle and could do with a helping hand.” And so it was that, in a season of managerial merry-go-rounds, perhaps the most surprising return of the season of all came to pass. Hodgson is back at Selhurst Park, and his mission is about as straightforward as they come: he needs to keep Crystal Palace in the Premier League.
But despite atrocious form and the recruitment shortfall which has left their first-team squad looking unbalanced after a failure to signifcantly strengthen in January and shorn of confidence,was enough of a surprise to feel like an act of desperation.
But while Hodgson is one of the most likeable people in professional football and there’s no doubting the connection between him and the club to which he’s returned, is the decision to bring him back wise? After all, his previous departure from the club at the end of the 2020/21 season felt like a retirement as well as a fin de siecle, with Palace winning just four of their last 16 league matches of that season.
Bringing in Patrick Vieira was supposed to be a return to a more progressive style of management, giving a relative newcomer their first Premier League managerial opportunity standing in stark contrast to their departing To be bringing him back less than two years later, with the team on the precipice of a scrap to stay in the Premier League for which they have looked ill-equipped in recent weeks, looks from the outside like a decision made because no-one else of much substance was available at...
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