Former Crystal Palace midfielder John Salako has hailed the ‘absolutely incredible’ job Roy Hodgson has done since replacing Frank de Boer as manager last year.
Hodgson stepped into the Selhurst Park hot-seat in September 2017 after De Boer was sacked early into his Eagles’ tenure, having gone the first four Premier League games without a point or a goal.
Since then, despite a rocky start, Hodgson has excelled in re-establishing the club as a Premier League side to stay, guiding the club to an 11th-place finish last season.
With the former England head coach having signed a new contract until 2020 in the summer, Salako has been full of praise for the man who has reinvigorated the club. Speaking to talkSPORT, as reported by Football.London, Salako said of Hodgson:
Absolutely incredible.
Managers have come in, Tony Pulis, Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce, they came in to save the club, and then it was about moving it forward.
That’s what Frank de Boer was brought in for; to develop a system and bring in a higher calibre of player to be higher up in the league more consistently.
It just seemed to be a disaster and he was asking some players to do things they couldn’t do, like playing a back five, and he just lost that dressing room.
But Roy, he has got so much experience and he had a lot to prove after the England situation at the Euros, where we failed miserably, so I think it was the right place at the right time with the right club and the right backroom staff.
He was just able to galvanise things and be pragmatic and put round pegs in round holes, and going back to a 4-4-2, with one striker dropping in to help with the midfield – and they have flown.
Apart from having a striker that puts the ball in the back of the net regularly, I think Palace would be much higher up the table.
