Roy Hodgson announces he's "finished" with Crystal Palace & details future plans
Roy Hodgson has declared he will be “finished” with Crystal Palace at the end of the season.
But the 76-year-old former England manager, who compared himself to “old people walking around the supermarket”, is not ready to announce his retirement and he could take another job next year. The Eagles boss admitted he was “absolutely sick” of modern football after the weekend defeat to Liverpool.
Hodgson also had to apologise last week for calling Palace fans “spoiled” for booing after the home defeat to Bournemouth and his team have now won only one in nine. The ex-Anfield boss was given another one-year contract to stay at Selhurst Park this season after returning for a second spell to keep them up last season.
Before facing Manchester City on Saturday with a squad ravaged by injuries and suspension, Hodgson said he was uncertain about his future intentions but added: “I certainly don’t have it as a goal to keep going and keep going and keep going.
“I know the day will come when it is no longer possible for me to work, when I won’t have the offer to work at the level that I want to work at.
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“I thought it was coming at the end of last season but it was prolonged by the club asking me to stay on for this season. That is what I am doing. I don’t have any plans or any thoughts beyond that. I want to do well this season, I want to help the club have a good season and that will be me finished with Crystal Palace Football Club.
“And whether or not I will want to continue somewhere else, I don’t know. I am determined not to make any bold statement that this is my last season. I’m anxious to keep this job and do well and at the end of the season my contract will be up and it will be up to me whether I want to add my name to the list of people putting their names forward for other jobs or whether I move graciously away.”
Roy Hodgson was furious after Palace's defeat to Liverpool (TNT Sports)Hodgson emphasised his frustrations last weekend were with the officiating and VAR after Jordan Ayew’s sending off changed the game.
“I will certainly miss football but there are moments like Saturday where in a dark mood - where you feel an impotent anger and you feel injustice - that you realise that it might not be the real calamity that I always feared it might be,” he said.
“By Monday, I had come out of the funk. I would hope people would understand what I said. I don’t want to jack it in. I am ok now - back to normal.”
And Hodgson insisted he would keep using his seniority in the game to speak up on controversial issues. “I’m like the old people walking around the supermarket who stand around and get in your way,” said the Premier League ’s oldest manager.
“That’s what I maybe do in football terms. And maybe I have taken the liberty sometimes of saying things which are controversial or will alert people to certain things that happen in the game. Because I feel I can afford to do it at my stage of life.”
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