I wrote an article last week saying that Crystal Palace boss Frank de Bier was skating on thin ice at the London club. It turns out that the ice broke earlier today and he was fired as Eagles boss following just 77 days in charge of the club.
As I stated in a few previous articles Crystal Palace appointing De Boer was a gamble. It could quite easily have gone either way. It could have proven a masterstroke and it could have proven a disaster. Unfortunately, for the Dutch boss, it was the latter.
Lost all four games this season
Sunday’s 1-0 defeat at Burnley was the final straw for the Eagles board. The rather unfortunate defeat means that De Boer’s side had lost their first four Premier League games of the season.
The Eagles also broke a Premier League record, becoming the first team to lose all four of their first games of the season without scoring. In truth, Palace’s performance against Burnley was not terrible and with slightly more luck, they may have got something out of the game.
It was not to be and for a second successive managerial job, De Boer left a club without even making it to the six-month mark. His career may never recover from his stint at Selhurst Park.
A massive change of style
The reason that De Boer’s appointment was such a gamble was that the Dutchman’s preferred playing style is so far removed from his predecessors. The likes of Tony Pulis and Sam Allardyce are not exactly renowned for their football being possession-based.
Alan Pardew’s team produced a decent style, but it was never the Barcelona-Ajax school of football thinking that De Boer likes to implement. The Dutchman was always going to have a battle on his hands changing the style of the team.
Even by Palace’s standards, he did have a massive transfer budget and the players at the club were ill equipped to play the way De Boer wanted them to. They were never going to suddenly become highly trained passers of the ball. There are some decent technical players in the Palace side and with the right boss, the Eagles could soar.
Frank de Boer was not that man. He did his best to instil his football philosophy into the team. However, at the end of the day, the players just did not buy into it.
Who will be the next Crystal Palace boss?
After the failure of attempting to appoint an expansive foreign boss, I have a feeling that Palace will go back to a steady/boring English boss with their next appointment.
Former England boss Roy Hodgson is favourite at 1/7 to be the next Eagles boss, while Burnley boss Sean Dyche is the next favourite at odds of 7/1. However, Dyche was also linked with the position in the summer prior to De Boer’s appointment.
It seems that Palace are set to put their club in the hands of the vastly experienced Hodgson, at least until the end of the season. Hodgson suffered major embarrassment in his last job, as Iceland knocked his England team out of Euro 2016 at the last-16 stage.
Hodgson’s appointment will not be one that will excite the majority of Palace fans. However, the former England boss has a history of doing a decent job at mid-ranking Premier League clubs like Fulham and West Brom.
The man he looks set to replace may feel hard done by. However, his sacking came as little surprise, as he was never going to get months to prove himself. The harsh reality is that football is a results based business and his results at Selhurst Park were poor and he suffered the consequences.
Where Crystal Palace right to sack Frank de Boer?
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