“Build from the back” and “Respect the point”. These two football sayings have been a key building block of the football played under Roy Hodgson at Crystal Palace.
It is no secret that Hodgson is obsessed with drilling the team on structure and defensive positioning. Dean Kiely, goalkeeping coach at Palace, spoke to Love Sport this week and explained how the veteran manager constantly emphasises his expectations to the players. Kiely said: “he keeps reminding the players that if they switch off or take it for granted that’s when they’ll get hurt so the demands are massive.”
This rigid approach has certainly transferred to the players under Hodgson. Palace hadn’t kept a clean sheet in the 20117/18 season when Hodgson took over from Frank De Boer in September 2017. It was a period of transition and the team didn’t record a clean sheet until late November. However, Palace would go on to keep nine clean sheets overall for the entire season with a respectable goals conceded rate of 1.45 considering we conceded seven in four matches under De Boer.
This trend continued last season as Palace kept 12 clean sheets overall, the sixth best in the division, with a goal conceded rate of 1.39. Again, a respectable statistic and one which highlights Hodgson’s demands for defensive structure.
Unsurprisingly, this approach has repeated so far this season as Palace have kept 2 clean sheets already and are yet to concede more than one goal in the opening four fixtures with only 2 goals conceded, the least in the league so far.
The priority of defending may affect the excitement of play at times, as we have already seen with the losses to Sheffield United and Colchester recently. But setting up in this way plays to the squad’s strengths with an overload of defenders and midfielders to choose from. It also gives us a chance to take on all teams in the league and the setup keeps us in every game with a chance of gaining three points, the win against Manchester United shows how this is possible.
Hodgson is coming up to his two year anniversary at Palace and we are looking to reap the benefits of his defensive approach sitting in 4th with 7 points, our best start in the top flight since 2015/16 when we picked up 9 points from our first four fixtures. If the balance between resilient defence and clinical finishing can be found then it could be a successful season for Palace.