Core strength key for Crystal Palace manager as he opts not to reveal parting gift from players

BY ANDREW MCSTEEN

As Roy Hodgson prepares to take his final ever training session as Crystal Palace manager tomorrow morning in Beckenham, he has praised the core of players who have provided a solid base for the club to build on.

Eleven of the 18 players in his squad for his first-ever game as Eagles boss in September 2017 against Southampton are still at the club with four – Andros Townsend, Joel Ward, Jeffrey Schlupp and Christian Benteke – starting both that game and Hodgson’s most recent, against Arsenal on Wednesday with Patrick van Aanholt and Martin Kelly unused substitutes in both.

“The stability that these guys have given Crystal Palace Football Club and the platform that these guys have built up, that’s very, very solid concrete, and that that can be built on.

“They’ve done very well, all of them, to show the level of performance [they have]. The messages have basically been pretty much the same throughout the four years; the voices, mine and Ray’s (Lewington, assistant manager), are the same, the messages are the same. So it is possible to just to get fed up with hearing the same voice but we’ve been very lucky, Ray and I, and the other members of the coaching staff, that that hasn’t happened to us.

“They’ve been very happy to hear the messages, taken the messages on board to keep working at it and that is a tribute really to them. I can’t pay tribute to the players enough. You know I could talk at great length [about them], but you will never ever find any quote from me anywhere where you could really even suggest what I am alluding to is criticism, because I literally don’t have any criticism.

“They’ve always given their best, they’ve always done the best they could possibly do. There’s never been one moment really where I’ve come to the training round thinking; ‘I’m not looking forward to this today, I’m not looking forward to working with this group, I’m not looking forward to meeting this or that player’. I must say that never happened.

“For those who work in football may hear me say we will be raising an eyebrow because it’s so often that that isn’t the case. So I’m very, very fortunate and I really believe that they can carry on. There might need to be a few tweaks and there might be a few new players brought in, but that’s normal, that’s what football life is, but there’s a strong core here.”

Ahead of training earlier today Hodgson revealed that the players made a presentation to him and Ray Lewington but wanted to keep it the contents of the emotional moment a secret for now.

“We’ve certainly been bowled over by the presentation they made this morning and you know that was quite fantastic, I was really impressed by that., touched by it, there’s no question of that,” revealed Hodgson.

“It was an unbelievably generous gift that Ray and I received from them which we certainly didn’t expect, and it’s one that I certainly treasure, but I’d rather not broadcast it because I don’t think the players did it because they wanted it broadcasted, they did it for very much the right reason and wanted to show their appreciation for what we’ve done for them.

“But I must say that it should really be the other way around, it’s us needing to show our appreciation – Ray and I – for what they’ve done for us.”