Hodgson Out

Pay up his last few weeks and give him the bum's rush.
How ridiculous is it that we sack people like Gracia, Zola, Pearson, Munoz, Joka (OK not sacked but whatever) who for all their faults did their best for the club, felt a real connection, and then we let this shocking old **** see out his contract?

Sack him. Don't let him leave with 'dignity'.

Sack him.

 

The 2001/02 one?

Supposed to be pushing for promotion, never got higher than 9th all season, finished 14th after losing to all three relegated sides, including one of the worst ever in the second tier (Stockport), generally outclassed by the top sides, a number of awful defeats where much of the team didn’t seem to care (notably Burnley away, Sheff Wed away in the League Cup, Millwall and Sheff Utd at home).

 

Good shout, but we still had Robbo, Smith, Helguson and Nielsen

 

Hodgson saying he has no regrets on taking the Watford job. They should be asking the supporters the same question.

 

It’s almost as if it’s in his contract to ‘deflect opprobrium from the club hierarchy at every opportunity’. No other way to explain how a clearly intelligent man would act the way he has.

 

Can't argue with that mate!

 

I've just staggered off court having run around for four hours in singles and doubles against Queen's Club in the heat.
I lost both my matches but I ran my backside off against players 35 years younger.
You play for your team and your club.
I hear on the way back that Roy said it was " a long way to go" to applaud the away fans.
90 yards?!
He's taking the **** out of you Pozzo and all of us too.
Sack him now.
Should have done it at 5.15pm yesterday.
Shameful in a season of utter mind numbing awfulness.

 

Fingers cross Gino and Dux can change his mind about retiring and convince him to stay on for another year

 

I’m no fan of Hodgson, as I’m sure comes across, but if removing him is the only action we take over the coming days then it’s no more than a sticking plaster.

We are a club with so many things being done badly. If only our problems were just RH, then they’d be easy to fix. But they aren’t.

We appear to the naked eye to be a badly run club with people making bad decisions, signing bad players (often from an iffy agent), then treating them badly, and getting in a succession of poorly chosen managers to coach them without any real authority or consistency.

Enough.

Say goodbye to Hodgson, then take time and due diligence to be sure the next appointment is a good one. Why hurry? It’s May 8. If it’s to be Eustace, put in place the best support bubble possible to help him in his first senior managers job. That’s support, not interference! Let him have a much bigger say on the make up of the squad. A squad that, after all, will define him and his success or failure.

Treat with respect those players who will leave us. Word spreads fast on the football grapevine. We have to start building a reputation again as a place players want to come to. A fun working environment. Stop the stupidity over not paying bonuses or cancelling players leave. They’re human beings, not robots. Encourage youth. Make ours a club young players want to join to progress their careers. Stop the crazy long-term contracts to ageing pros. Carry out more due diligence on incoming transfers. Prioritise a player’s attitude and ability over which agent owns their rights. Prioritise areas that need investment, and refuse players who we neither need or don’t fit the bill, despite the agent representing them.

Let people stick to what they do and know best, and not have so many blurred lines. Let the Chairman get on with trying to make money for the club, rather than try to pick the squad. Let Eustace or whoever get on with coaching and managing the players. And above all let the owner stick to being the overall chief, but not one who micromanaged every single decision.

Open regular non-selective communication with the fans again, just as you used to do. You’re guardians of our club. It was there long before you arrived and will hopefully be there long after you’ve gone. You put your money where your mouth was and invested in us and gave us many happy memories along the way and therefore you’re entitled to earn money from it, but take us with you. Without us your investment would be a soulless place, as sadly was seen during covid. Keep us on side, we’re not so bad! Why buy a club only to see it become a laughing stock? Why invest in a club and the area only to see so many supporters now disillusioned, angry, resentful? It doesn’t have to be like this. Do things properly and the rewards will follow anyway.

And if you could just show RH the door before the end of the season, that would be nice too.

 

I know this isn't gonna go down well but I can assure you as a Palace fan - despite all of the vitriol and hysteria on these boards - Roy Hodgson is a very good manager. And if you don't wanna take that from me then perhaps talk to some Blackburn, West Brom or Fulham fans who'll tell you the exact same thing. Yes, things went badly for him at both Liverpool & England, but in reality he took over in extremely difficult circumstances at Liverpool with an ownership in disarray & at England, he actually doesn't get the credit he deserves for bringing through a new generation of young English players - many of whom have been regulars since he left.

At Palace, he took a team that was rock bottom without a win or a goal and lead us to comfortable safety in his first season. Despite the usual lazy (but simply untrue) cliches, we played excellent football during that season & the season that followed, too. No hoofball nonsense. Solid defensively, yes, but quick, precise and often devastating in attacking scenarios. It's certainly true that the football declined immensely in his last 2 years at the club but that was as a result of a complete lack of investment. He had the oldest squad in the league with a positive net spend, he lost players such as Cabaye, Loftus-Cheek, Sakho, Aaron Wan-Bissaka & he was simply cutting his cloth accordingly. It's hardly a surprise a back 4 of Ward-Cahill-Dann-Mitchell weren't playing out from the back and when you look at our squad on paper, it's quite remarkable how comfortably we stayed up in his last 2 seasons in charge - turgid football or not.

He was the only manager we've had since we were promoted that kept us clear of relegation in every season he was with us. Doing so on the lowest budget of all of them - by far. Every season we were in a relegation battle of sorts until Roy showed up and we weren't in the bottom 3 once in 4 seasons since he took us out of it in his first. He brought through 3 academy players in his time at the club, which averages out to a player for every full season he was at the club, one of whom we sold for £50m, another who is now a regular Premier League player and just earned an England call up. Wilfried Zaha had his highest goal scoring tally under Roy & he also had the highest points tally of any manager in our top flight history.

Roy often doesn't get the respect he deserves but I can assure you that him not being able to even keep you in it at this stage is indicative of something more than simply him being a waste of space heap of ****. Perhaps the vitriol should be directed a little closer to the top & the way the club is run. He's a criminally underrated manager who built the foundation for us to really build & progress as a club and that's why we were singing his name at the end of yesterday's game. As for his relationship with Watford fans, I guess I can't really comment on that part. But IMO you and the media are all making a lot more of him not coming to applaud the fans than is necessary, you still have 3 games left, including 2 at home. I'm almost certain, provided you don't all boo him, he will acknowledge you before the season is up. As for those wishing him dead - you are very, very noncey.

 

At times last season we were playing with Kouyate & Scott Dann as the 2 central defenders. Gary Cahill was also 35. I can assure you it was to do with less than having "good defenders" and more to do with having a very good manager. Zaha has undoubtedly been pivotal in us staying up, too.

 

He has been woeful. Team selection, tactics, substitutions. "I'm almost certain, provided you don't all boo him, he will acknowledge you before the season is up." Lucky us. To take the trouble to do a lap of Selhurst and then not to acknowledge the fans who had turned up in spite of the fact that we were already effectively relegated because "they were a bit far way" is sooo disrespectful. He can **** off now. I'm going to be booing him Wednesday and Saturday if the bastid is still here. I don't want him dead. Nor do I particularly want hin alive. I certainly don't want him at Vicarage Road.

 

He didn't do a lap of Selhurst, he applauded the Palace fans whilst the entire ground was singing his name on his way to the tunnel.

Have I missed something, is it commonplace for a manager to applaud the fans with 3 games left in a season?

 

He’s just been a terrible fit for us.

That shouldn’t tarnish the memory of anything he’s achieved elsewhere. We had to endure GT being lampooned for his time with England, but we knew what a good manager he was. Other clubs have rated Hodgson. For us he’s been dreadful. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Whether the last few months have been solely because of RH being a shocking appointment or a wider malaise at the club, only his departure and what happens next will show us.

All pantomimes need a villain and he’s ours right now. But not for much longer.

 

It just illuminates what a catastrophic basket case we are that RH could comfortably keep Palace up yet hadn't one iota of what to do here.

At the risk of repeating myself he could have had the honesty to admit he was clueless and told the world so.

For this I despise him as he is now a scapegoat for Fuxbury and Pozzo.

If anyone wants my seat for Wednesday please message me.

I am taking it out of boycott mode on the specific instructions that you boo and insult these three witless wassocks for 90 plus minutes.

Unbearable stupidity, arrogance and hubris.

We all know what the gods do to those they wish to destroy.

Well I'm raising a glass to Dennis Waterman and all WFC fans for such a dismal weekend, culminating in this **** up.

 

Hi @Moosegasm

 

Even Big Sam needed like £50m in a January window to keep us up. We were losing every week under him up until that point, including a 4-1 humiliation at home to Sunderland. It seemed like a matter of when not if we were going down, until Roy turned up. I don't say this all to rub it in but just to insist he is not a bad manager. And he's not one of the "fire fighter" Pulis/Big Sam type managers either. He built something from the ground up here on relatively very little by PL standards.

 

This does kind of highlight the folly of appearing on the forum of another team and proceeding to educate its users about their own club - possibly tens of billions of words have been expended on this exact subject on this forum by this point, and it's pretty much what (almost, now, finally) everyone Watford-associated has been doing for quite some time. You might not be aware of that, but then that's exactly why it might be prudent not to do this.

You haven't come up with some genius new perspective, I'm sorry to say. And despite the truth of it, it doesn't entirely excuse Roy for having been an utterly, utterly dreadful appointment, and both performed and carried himself really rather poorly indeed for pretty much the entirety of the time he has been here.

That doesn't erase all that he has achieved in his career to date, of course, but that isn't particularly relevant to us in the here and now.

 

No actually it is relevant to this thread in the here and now because this thread was posted on a Palace board and I've read through it to see it's littered with abuse towards Roy calling him a very bad manager. I've explained in detail why he wasn't. I'm not sure what "You haven't come up with some genius new perspective, I'm sorry to say" is even supposed to mean, that's just a bizarre statement, I'm sorry to say. It wasn't intended to be. It was intended to be a factual rebuttal of the claims that he is a bad manager + a question of why everyone's so hysterical about him not applauding the fans when you still have 3 games left.

 

I highly doubt that you are unsure what that is supposed to mean, as it's incredibly straightforward and directly applicable to the only part of your comment that I clearly highlighted in bold.

Now you're coming on screeching about fans of another club being 'hysterical', which seems rather counter to your peaceful 'factual rebuttal'?

Whether it was posted on a Palace board or not is also completely irrelevant - who gives a shyt? We didn't magically send it there - stay there and whine about it, if you really feel the need.

 

And you’ve had it explained to you why he has been a bad manager FOR US. What came before that is irrelevant.

I’m sure you all think Frank de Boer is a terrible manager - but maybe ask Ajax fans if they think that’s true. See where I’m going? Past success at other clubs is largely pointless when talking about what the guy is doing in the here and now.

Hodgson is a bad manager currently. Yes, our circumstances haven’t helped his cause - but his decisions, attitude and lack of care/attention have more than played their part to what’s happened here.

He may have laid the foundations for Vieira. But your lot clearly didn’t trust him to be a ‘very good manager’ going forward or else you’d have persuaded him to stay. You didn’t - and we, as a club, have seen at very close quarters as to the reasons why.

As for him not applauding the fans - optics stand for a lot. We were relegated and the least he could do was acknowledge the travelling fans efforts on the day but he said they ‘were too far away’ - distance was irrelevant. A brief applause from across the pitch would suffice. But he was too busy catching up with old friends and gazing around at the home stands. It was just poor form - and I suspect he knew that and didn’t give a single f*ck. Because that’s been his attitude since the minute he arrived.

He may well be a nice guy and respected etc etc. But his behaviour since joining us has left a lot to be desired and I think he should be ashamed of the way he’s carried himself a lot of the time.

 

With the greatest of respect mate, whilst you attempted to insult my intelligence in your first post, your responses just come across as tribal meathead nonsense and nowhere near as smart as you probably think.

I don't understand where you got "screeching" from (again, a bit of a bizarre comment). But, yes, I think the response to Roy Hodgson not applauding the fans when there are 3 games to go is "hysterical". Perhaps you could explain to me why it isn't and why he was expected to do it?

I will reiterate again as I feel you are struggling a bit here. I commented on this thread because I saw a lot of people claiming Roy Hodgson was a terrible manager and so I posted in defence of him. You don't have to like it, but that's all this is, perhaps it would be best for you to complain to a moderator or something? I dunno, maybe they'll ban me. But can't see why they would considering it was a perfectly civil post.

 

If by "our lot", you are referring to the board, I think actually they wanted to hire a new manager as it was unlikely Roy was going to stay on for a period of time to work with a new group of players and it would be better that they invested for a longer-term project.

If by "our lot", you are referring to our fans, plenty of Palace fans were hounding him out towards the end of his tenure and I also had to give them the facts of what he had actually achieved at the club.

 

The irony.

You seem to be struggling to comprehend - you posted something, as is your right to do so. And I responded to it, as is my right - something that you invited in coming on here and sharing your wonderfully-formed thoughts. Where this talk of moderators and bans has come from, I don't know.

 

Hi MS21, I understand why you've come on here to defend him, but I think you've been a tad hasty. Some glaring errors in your post:

- Look on these boards at the recent topics, you'll see that most of the discussions are actually more focussed on how badly run the club is and which of our senior management should be fired. We're not just blaming Roy for this. Roy can't be blamed for 2.5 out of the last 3 years.

- Roy definitely isn't a very good manager for us. Be it that he's just not a good fit, doesn't get on with the owners or just doesn't have it any more, I don't know, but it's undeniable that he's not been good here. For example, in a must-win game 1-0 up but with the players clearly tired he didn't make a sub. We lost 2-1. Not a single sub or change of tactics. We had a free kick in injury time with the potential to at least get a point, but Foster was told to stay back. Another example against you, we were 1-0 down and had to win, we get a man sent off and he switches to a 4-4-1... We needed to gamble, keeping it at 1-0 is worthless. He also repeatedly says in games where we are completely out-played that we performed well, so I'm not convinced he's completely with it.

- Credit for young English players he brought through? I'm not entirely sure why he'd get the credit, but he did give debuts to Harry Kane, Jamie Vardy, Raheem Sterling, Eric Dier and Jordan Henderson, so props for that. Although for reference, he gave 36 debuts which include Jonjo Shelvey, Tom Heaton, Danny Rose, Calum Chambers, Jon Flanagan and Carl Jenkinson, so it's a mixed bag.

- It's pretty standard to clap the travelling fans, yes. I can't say I'm that bothered, personally, but I can see why people would be annoyed by how happy he was at FT, how he'd rather have a joke with his old buddies than apologise to/thank the fans, and even more ridiculously say they were a bit far away.

Half of my family are Fulham fans, so I've always had respect for him for what he did there - it was truly remarkable - but his spell here has been a shambles.

But agreed that death-wishes are in ill-taste, even if meant as a joke. Although I'm not entirely sure 'noncey' is the term you're looking for, especially considering he's very, very old.

 

Thanks for the essay on crystal palace history that I did not read, but more importantly how is wishing an old man dead noncey?

 

Perhaps a dream team with Sean Dyche?

 

None of this will happen

 

He's a **** and so are you

 

Wish I’d come up with a lecture for you lot when you weren’t bowled over by Ranieri. Could’ve mansplaned the situation at your club nicely for you.

 

I liked uncle Claudio. He was ****, but at least he observed the basic niceties. Even when he left he did it as a gentleman.