Can Roy Hodgson’s meat and potatoes approach nourish Palace, will Alexis Sánchez regain centre stage for Arsenal and might Watford go top?
Following the fiasco of Frank de Boer’s short reign at Selhurst Park, Roy Hodgson takes charge of a Crystal Palace team who have already suffered four scoreless defeats in as many Premier League matches. With trips to Manchester City, Manchester United and a home match against Chelsea to follow the game against Southampton, the importance of getting a morale-boosting result against comparatively easy opposition cannot be overstated and the manner in which Hodgson approaches this match will give Palace fans some idea what to expect in the months ahead. Quite how instant an impact he’ll have is open to question, considering that his former charge Simon Davies once said Hodgson had taken more than two years to “convert” Fulham’s players to methods that eventually got them to the 2010 Europa League final. Very recent history suggests he won’t get that kind of time at Palace. While we all know what atrocities they are capable of at their worst, at their best Hodgson’s teams work hard to maintain a solid shape that renders them difficult to break down, the stuff of relentless, presumably tedious but effective training ground drills. “Every day in training is geared towards team shape,” said Davies back then. “I’ve been working with the manager three seasons now and every day is team shape, and it shows.” While this meat-and-potatoes approach that has served Hodgson with varying degrees of success is unlikely to get Palace’s players or their supporters too excited, if it yields better results than De Boer’s methods it will do for now. BG
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