Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson admits he has huge job on his hands after defeat to Southampton

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson
Roy Hodgson has admitted his new club must make massive improvements if they are to avoid relegation, though has told Crystal Palace fans it may take some time before results start to go their way Credit: Getty Images 

Since Roy Hodgson was appointed Crystal Palace manager last week much of the narrative has centred around his status as a local boy who understands the club and what they need.

It is one that the former England manager has already had enough of. After this insipid defeat Hodgson pointed out his lifelong affinity for the club had no bearing on his appointment, and will have even less on whether they can survive ­after making the worst start to a top-flight season by any club since 1888, losing their first five games without scoring a goal. Instead, Hodgson insists managerial nous is the only currency that counts.

“I did not walk in here as Christian Gross once did and say, ‘I’ve come on the train’,” said Hodgson, referencing the Swiss manager who arrived at Tottenham in 1997 ­brandishing a Tube ticket in a bid to ingratiate himself with the locals.

“I didn’t say I’m a local boy, you told me, ‘As a local boy you must be pleased to be back’. What do you want me to say? That I’m not a local boy? Because I am.

“I’m not the one waving that flag, and it’s not because I was a local boy I was given a job – it’s because the hierarchy thinks I can do the job, and I’m sure had I been from somewhere far, far from Croydon they wouldn’t have said, ‘We can’t take him, he’s not a Croydon boy’. That’s not me playing that one up.”

If Hodgson is not embracing his local connection then maybe that is because he has not come to Palace to make friends. The club’s board have told him relegation is “unthinkable”, with Hodgson already likening the task to the great escape he masterminded with Fulham a decade ago.

But after Steven Davis’s goal settled this drab encounter, Hodgson knows his squad needs to improve dramatically. A kick up the backside, rather than an arm around the shoulder, is his likely method.

“You can’t just go round to people all the time saying, ‘You’ll be OK, you’ll be fine, that was all right, bad luck’, because they need more than that,” he said. “What you have to have is, ‘Look, what we’re doing here, or what you’re doing there, that’s not what we want, that’s not good enough’.

“I still think we’ll be OK. But it won’t be by the end of October, possibly it might be quite a long way forward.”

With matches against the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea to come it is clear why Hodgson is fearful. The impact of the short-lived Frank de Boer era and the attempted switch to a more expansive game plan may be felt at Selhurst Park for some time to come, although midfielder James McArthur pointed out the players must shoulder the blame.

Steven Davis 
Steven Davis scored the only goal of the game as Palace's miserable start to the season continued Credit:  REUTERS

“We obviously feel we let that manager down,” he said of De Boer. “It’s on our shoulders because the previous manager obviously wanted to play a different style of play, but it’s down to us players to win matches, to put the ball in the net.”

As for Southampton, this was a highly enjoyable away day that will chiefly be remembered for club-record signing Mario Lemina announcing himself to English football with a dominant performance, and for Virgil van Dijk’s first appearance since January.

“We all know he [Van Dijk] is one of the best players in the Premier League but realistically he has not played for eight months so it is not easy to come back and just play,” said fellow defender Maya Yoshida.

“After three games, [Lemina] is getting adjusted a little bit. Much better than August. I am very happy for him, he was man of the match today. It is quite a good squad we have.”

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