Crystal Palace announced the return of Roy Hodgson on Tuesday morning after deciding to hand Patrick Vieira his P45 on Friday.
The 75-year-old has been tasked with steering the south Londoners away from the relegation zone, after a winless start to 2023 left the Eagles just three points above the Premier League’s bottom three.
Most Crystal Palace fans have been left infuriated by the lack of ambition on show, and have little reason to be pleased about this move given how dull Hodgson’s final two campaigns at Selhurst Park were.
Nevertheless, the decision has been made, and to look at one positive, the current squad is far better than the one Hodgson left behind – on that note, let’s see how the starting XI could look in his second stint in SE25.
How Crystal Palace could look under Roy Hodgson
Well, Hodgson primarily adopted a 4-3-3 formation throughout his first stint at Crystal Palace, as shown on Transfermarkt.
The system often changed to a 4-5-1 midway through games as the likes of Andros Townsend or Eberechi Eze would tuck in to form a solid bank of five in midfield.
We would expect Michael Olise to take up Townsend’s old role in the team. The France Under-21 international has improved leaps and bounds defensively this season, and could be an effective outlet in that area.
As you can see, we feel Hodgson will ignore some of his favourites from his first stint at Selhurst Park, such as Jordan Ayew, James Tomkins, Luka Milivojevic and James McArthur.
That is simply because better options have arrived in south London, such as Olise, Cheick Doucoure, Joachim Andersen, Marc Guéhi and Albert Sambi Lokonga – on loan from Arsenal – to name a few.
Should Vicente Guaita recover from injury over the international break, he is expected to replace 19-year-old Joe Whitworth in between the sticks, while an old Hodgson favourite in Joel Ward should keep his place at right-back.
Of course, many Crystal Palace fans will argue that this is far too attacking for a Hodgson side.
However, goalscoring is the major issue – Jeffrey Schlupp’s goal against Arsenal on Sunday was Crystal Palace’s first since February in over seven hours of football.
Therefore, Hodgson may abandon the overly defensive setup seen in his first stint, although that could simply be optimistic thinking on our behalf – he can certainly be a stubborn operator, to say the least.
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