If the short-term appointment of Roy Hodgson is the footballing equivalent of slapping a band aid onto a broken leg, then this Crystal Palace side is still one in need of major surgery.
Hodgson, returning to Selhurst Park following the sacking of Patrick Vieira, is a short-term solution to an immediate problem. His vast experience, and his existing knowledge of many of Palace’s players, are two of the leading factors in Steve Parish’s decision to bring his former boss back to South London, with the aim of avoiding relegation and giving a much-needed jolt to a side with one win in their last 15 Premier League games.
Given that Crystal Palace opted to move on from Hodgson less than two years ago – an attempt to move towards a more proactive, positive style of play – the 75-year-old’s sudden certain has been greeted with understandable dissatisfaction by many supporters, regardless of the precarious position the Eagles find themselves in.
The good news, at least, is that the future looks a damn sight more exciting than the present. According to The Guardian, Crystal Palace have already drawn up a list of potential long-term appointments from the summer onwards; Adi Hutter and Paulo Fonseca among them.
Paulo Fonseca can transform Crystal Palace
Hutter, a free-agent following spells at Eintracht Frankfurt and Borussia Monchengladbach, is the more attainable of the two. But Fonseca, under contract until 2024 at Lille, may be the more eye-catching. And not just because the 50-year-old would arrive having accumulated no fewer than nine trophies across spells at FC Porto, Braga and Shakhtar Donetsk.
“What the coach is doing is extraordinary,“ Premier League legend Thierry Henry tells Amazon of Fonseca; the flexibility and complexity of his tactics catching the eye of the former France international.
“A four-man defence which turns into a three-man defence. Timothy Weah, who gives width on the left side, (Jonathan) Bamba on the right. They play, they press, they score.”
A Crystal Palace side who ‘play’, ‘press’ and, above all, ‘score’ is the stuff of dreams for a long-suffering fanbase tired of the never-ending mediocrity; an excellent spell under Vieira last term are rare ray of sunshine in an eternally grey sky.
Fonseca, throughout his managerial career, averages 1.7 goals per game. For Vieira, that tally drops to 1.3. Much of the frustration felt by Palace supporters revolves around their team’s lack of intensity. Their lack of creativity. A galling absence of attacking thrust. Palace have only scored more than 51 league goals in a season once since 2008/09.
In contrast, only Monaco, Marseille and PSG have found the net more often than Fonseca’s Lille this term; Jonathan David blossoming into one of Europe’s finest centre-forwards under the Portuguese.
Paulo Fonseca is ‘extraordinary’
It is not difficult to imagine Fonseca, who prides himself upon his stylish, front-foot approach, getting far more out of Ebere Eze, Michael Olise and Odsonne Edouard than Vieira did, while introducing the sort of style that would have Palace fans actively looking forward to Saturday afternoons again.
“In football, sometimes things are too serious. Sometimes, you need to also make the people smile,” Fonseca tells the Ligue 1 website. “I take pleasure in my profession.
“My teams, and here it is easy to see, we want to press high. We have (attackers such as) Jonathan David, Jonathan Bamba, (Adam) Ounas, Tim (Weah). They are players who help the team a lot. So to play with two plus one (in attack) is not a problem for us.”
Hodgson, if he is to keep Crystal Palace in the Premier League, will do so with organisation, with discipline, with two-banks-of-four. But if he is the short-term solution, then Fonseca may be the man to take the Premier League’s most underwhelming side forward in the long-term.
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