Access All Areas at Crystal Palace with Steve Parish & Roy Hodgson | The Overlap

0:00I always remember Sir Alex saying, I think, maybe towards the end when I was there, that being around young people kept him young. Yes. Is there an element of that with yourself? Oh, yeah, absolutely. They do give you some energy. Yeah. You know, I think just being in the job energises you. There's no doubt I've felt energised these last two months or so, more so than perhaps I was when my life was more mundane in terms of going down the gym, going for walks, finding a nice restaurant for lunch or dinner. And that was good too. I don't want to complain to you about that. Sounds like my life. Just in case Sheila's watching this, I'd better make that clear.

0:33I was happy with that as well. Really, really sorry that you did enjoy that time as well. Having sympathy and empathy with your players is vitally important. Once you start getting angry with them or disliking them, that's when your chance of really coaching them starts to diminish. It's like a runaway train. You can see it going wrong and you can't really help. Was there any point that you thought, what am I doing? Could I put more pressure on, maybe? But I don't know that that makes any difference. How are you in that moment where you're feeling like you might need to make a change? What was that first message that you gave the players on that first day in training?

1:07That's a good question. When they first came to the Premier League, they probably didn't realise the jeopardy involved. I didn't know what I was doing. It was rock bottom really, so the only way was up. Do you buy into the theory that you've got to be a little bit mad to be a manager?

1:23Well, an exciting edition of the overlap today where we're at Crystal Palace's training ground and academy I'm here to sit down with Steve Parrish and my old boss, Roy Hodgson, who obviously I've worked with for four years with England, done a brilliant job in this last seven weeks, and Crystal Palace are having a great end to the season, so it should be pretty positive round here.

1:50It's almost like between a five-star hotel and Meek's Great Restaurant. Meek's training facility. Good to see you. How are you? Good to see you. Really good. It's absolutely outstanding this. Good. I'm glad you like it. This I think is what football clubs are about, or being at a football club is about. It's trying to create progress. It's what the fans want to see. And obviously we've got such a great history of developing players. But that was out of four portal cabins and waterlogged pitches. Shall we have a walk around? Yeah, definitely. Come through. We'll start in here.

2:20This is the whole site, just to give you an idea. The first team are here. So that's really good for the kids being able to go across. We quite like that concept, you know, like you're going somewhere, you're taking a step up. But obviously they're called on for training a lot. This is all finished. This is the bit that you're going to walk around. When I was with Roy, obviously we'll go and see Roy shortly, with England. And we were concerned at the time about production of players from the Premier League. But there's no doubt been a massive increase in quality of English players produced by Premier League academies, hasn't there, in the last few years?

2:53and obviously the EFL academies as well. Yes, and when Gareth, obviously England manager, was in the vanguard of creating these, because he was at the FA with a guy called Jed Roddy, and I mean, I would admit to thinking on, we've got to invest all this huge amount of money in order to just be in the game. It's a big expectation on owners, isn't it? It is, but things like this are so important because I think what we found with a lot of young English players was being on the football pitches where they're most at home, but developing their other skills. Sometimes maybe came later for England players.

3:28But I think these kind of developing social skills, we make sure the coaches sit and eat with the players. We make sure it's a really nice environment. They're used to having nice things. They've got positive people around them that want them to succeed. So I think these things have been great. How do you look at it as a business case as an owner in terms of obviously recovering the money that you've invested in? Is it about obviously producing players that means that you don't have to go into the transfer market and obviously players that you could potentially sell on? Do you look at it in that way?

3:56It's about£5 million a year to run. The facility, yeah. So, you know, it's a huge amount of cost because... That's not including staff? Yeah, that includes the staff. It includes the staff and, of course, you've got to try and find a way of paying for it, right? Yeah, yeah. But, you know, it's not hard. You only need one first-team player. I mean, one Aaron Bissaka, one Tyrek Mitchell. He did well there, getting 50 million for Aaron, didn't you? He's doing well at the moment, actually. So he was a winger. Yeah. And going back to that, people needing somebody, they needed a right back. And Kevin Keane used to take the younger players and the ones that were on the fringe of the squad on a Sunday for coaching.

4:35Right. He said, Aaron's brilliant, you know, at defending. Like, he's brilliant. I know he plays wide right, but he's a brilliant defender. They should try him. And he never came back. Roy got him. And they just, it was unbelievable, obviously, for us. with more of a defensive-minded team against the top teams, particularly then. And obviously, he got the attention of a lot of clubs, you know, and Manchester United came in. And he's also, you could argue, paid for this facility, hasn't he, and Moore probably? Yeah, if you could look at it like that. If you look at it in that way. Like that, and Wilfrid as well, because we've stayed in the Premier League all those years, and we're in such a rich catchment area.

5:08I think there was, I don't know what it is at the moment, but there was some stat that something like 14 % of all the English qualifying players came from within about a five mile radius of here that were playing in the Premier League. Wow. I always think Premier League owners and chairmen must be just focusing 99.9 % of the time on thinking, how do I stay in the Premier League? But it's obvious with you, you're a fan of the club, that you understand the detail of the rest of the football operation and what everything that's going on as well. So obviously you're working on that, but this is part of that, right?

5:39And this is maybe provides a shortcut to that and a way of doing it. So understanding every aspect of what we're doing, being involved in the building projects, trying to do it all as cheaply as possible. I mean, this cost us£30 million so far. And£11 million went into the pitches because we've got a problem with the river. £11 million for the football pitches? £11 million for the football pitches, yeah. People have no idea how much... That doesn't sound right. Yeah, just to... That must have hurt a little bit when you got the bill through for that. Well, we knew when we looked into it. I mean, we've got particular issues.

6:12If you want flat pitches... You've got to spend 11 million. If you've got a river, you've got to take as much as you build up. It's all about not pushing the water down to somewhere else. So if you build a big dam and you build all your pitches up, then Auntie Ethel gets the water in her back garden. So just taking the soil out of that area to flatten that pitch was a million. Just taking the soil off site. And then the rest of it, all of these buildings were existing buildings. and then we got brilliant architects involved and we refurbished them all. Just these are actually existing buildings?

6:48These are existing buildings. So they're just reclad? This is the old cricket pavilion. Wow. You wouldn't have thought of that. No. That's brand new. Are they listed or protected or something? No, it was simply this. I could get straight into Cat 1 by refurbishing these buildings or I could wait three years, knock them all down, get planning, build new buildings. right so i it was and then that would probably have cost 60 70 million right as i walked into the i came to the car park i thought it was like the old cottage at yes at fulham and i thought why is this old house remaining in the car park i wondered whether it was protected or whether it's no we just left it there we just i mean it may go at some point um but we you know we just thought it was it we needed these buildings we didn't really need any extra space we got 80 000 square feet we're building at the back right so um the media team are in there you know we can keep them out of the way.

7:38I thought it was for Roy to have an afternoon kick.

7:48So you picked this club up out of administration January 2010. June 2010. You went into administration I think in January 2010 for three and a half million pounds was it at the time? Yeah, so we paid, in all it cost about£16 million because we had no players. Right. If the stadium was separated in a separate administration, so I managed to get that out of a separate administration. So we paid£3.5 million for the ground. And then between us, we put about£16 million in for players, running costs. Was it a match when you found the club when you first came here? Or was it OK? Well, it was run down facilities-wise because the club hadn't owned the stadium, so there'd been no investment in the stadium.

8:32The training ground had been sold, so I had to go and try and buy the training ground back. And there were very few players, you know, because a lot of them were gone, they were off contract during administration or they'd been sold. Sometimes it's almost better starting like that though, right? You know, you didn't have... Almost from scratch. Almost from scratch, right? And of course, loads of optimism. The fans loved the stadium, was reunited, and started doing little bits to the stadium and started making little improvements. So it was rock bottom, really. so the only way was up, you know, so it was quite a positive.

9:01I didn't know what I was doing. I had an advertising business with 3 ,000 people in it that I was trying to run at the same time. And then gradually you kind of start applying some of the things that you would do normally. You start working it out. We had a real struggle the first year, you know, we nearly got relegated. And then we were lucky enough to go on a run and get promoted the next year. Yeah. Just got a little bit lucky in the first year, almost.

9:30So when I bought the club out of administration, I honestly thought I'd have it for a year or a few months. They couldn't find a buyer. And I had this other business, and I said, look, I really don't have time. And then I thought there were people that had written in. And the CEO at the time said, look, there are other people that are interested. So I said, well, if they're serious, maybe three or four of us will do it. It might be an interesting thing to do. So I met these three other guys, Jeremy, Martin and Stephen, through the course of a couple of weeks. I remember Stephen particularly, I said to him, look, you know, let's just do it 25 % each.

10:05I've spent a lot of time looking at it, but I don't want anything extra. I'll get 25%, you will have 25%. We'll get it back on its feet. We'll find somebody to buy it. I remember him sitting in his wine business, and he said, how much do you need? I said, well, I probably need about three and a half, four million quid. He went, okay, I'll do it. And then I remember signing for the club with no paperwork between any of us. I had no idea. I mean I signed up for whatever it was Did you understand the debt positions at the time though and all that sort of Yeah yeah yeah I had a good idea of what it would need Liabilities were Yeah and I'd learnt from afar that none of these things made money you know that you couldn't run them at break even I probably then realised exactly how much harder it was when I got in and then in the end I had a sort of sense of responsibility to these three guys to the club and I got a bit of a bug for it and then it all sort of snowballed from there Did you take them out then some of them Yeah, so I got some American investment in.

10:57So when we got to the Premier League, I said, look, if we want to go for it and stay in the league, I've got to take some quite chunky risks. And I don't really want to be coming to you. We're great mates by this time, right? And saying I need 15 million each, 20 million each to get through the summer. So I found Josh and David, who've been absolutely brilliant. And where they've been fantastic is in their support of me. They like this sort of local partnership that they've got. They understand that I understand the fans pretty much. What do they get out of it? I know what you get out of it. You're a fan.

11:32You love the club. You've supported them all your life. But what do they get out of it if it's not making them any money and they're American? Listen, we've built a good relationship and they enjoy it. They like the club. They just enjoy it, isn't it? They just enjoy it. They love sport. They own the 76ers. They're in the playoffs at the moment. It's like a social investment, really, for them in some ways. or a well I think look I think if I'm honest probably you'd need to speak to them when they first came to the Premier League they probably didn't realise the jeopardy involved American sport is very very different you know first of all as an owner you're kind of deified you know you can go in the Hall of Fame if you're an owner in America right of an NBA team generally the price of the value of your asset rises and you don't really lose money while you own it generally so that's obviously very different from the Premier League where it's very, very difficult to improve.

12:22So why did they like the Premier League? Because it's completely opposite to that, isn't it, really? I mean, it can be completely opposite to that. Because there is jeopardy. You can go down. You are expected to put money in. It is getting more expensive to run a football club. Look, I think if there's a mistake that people make when they come to the Premier League is that they think that they can make a difference very, very quickly. So there's this kind of perception... Are you referring to any particular club? I just think generally, I mean, if you look at the bottom nine in the Premier League, have spent£900 million on transfers this year.

12:50We're at the bottom of the transfer spending this year. Premier League has spent£2.5 billion on transfers. It's mesmerising. I mean, just to give you an idea, the whole TV media money is£3.3 billion in a season, and we spent£2.5 billion of it just on buying players. Look at Man United. What did Man United do when they were successful? Alex Ferguson said two or three players, was it, every year? That was the most, really. You can really understand whether they're good enough, really understand if they're good lads, really understand what they're going to give you and not upset the apple cart of all the lads that are there I don't want to touch on sackings too much but the Boar one where I think he was only here 10 weeks people might see that as a mistake but actually he's actually acting straight away and obviously ending it being clinical is obviously good leadership as well, was it just something that you thought I've got to end this straight away, it's never going to work because that's the one sort of if you like, I think Neil Warnock wasn't here too long either, was it?

13:47There's two that have been sort of, if you like, moved aside quite quickly. I had one in Salford after three or four months. Well, Neil came in to help me out, right? And we knew it would be pretty short term. Neil's a great guy and a great manager and that was fine. Look, the Frank one, again, we talk about mistakes. So, look, we talked to Frank about an evolution of the playing style. Obviously, people get impatient and he felt he could do it quicker, you know, with what we had. And that's understandable. What there was apparent was just that this league is different. I mean, let's not talk about better or worse.

14:22Crystal Palace is different as well, the way you play. Yes, especially if you're used to playing a certain way in a certain league with the best team and you're keeping the ball all the time. I remember one conversation we had talking about, are we just going to keep the ball? And I was like, we're not going to go away at Liverpool. Now, to be fair, you look at teams like Brighton and they're proving that that is possible. So maybe if Frank had had long enough, you know, and we'd had the right personnel, he could have got there. So it wasn't the right fit for us at that time. That doesn't mean it couldn't have worked.

14:54It didn't. We were maybe trying to run before we walked a little bit. So it didn't work out. So, yeah, you've got to be prepared to make the difficult decisions. It's easy just to let it drift, isn't it? Are you feeling that you've come into the end of your ownership stint here at Crystal Palace? or do you think, no, I'm in it for the long term? Well, it's been here since 1861. So I'm definitely leaving at some point before it goes. Could I have put more pressure on, maybe? You know, could I have said... Put more pressure on Patrick? Yes. Unless somebody, Elon Musk, comes along and wants to buy the club, you know, we're not going to get into the top four right now.

15:30Probably. We're the only team in 2023 in Europe that hadn't won.

15:48These are pretty smart changing rooms for under 23s. Yeah, under 21s now, isn't it? Under 21s, is it? It's better back to 21s, yeah. It's better than the changing rooms that we had at United in the first team. That's been back all many years. So this is almost a replica of our first team changing room. So the idea, obviously, there's much more basic ones, and you go up to the under 18, which is quite a nice one. And then when you're in the 21s, you're a professional footballer. you're playing out on that show pitch, you're playing Man United coming in, Man City coming in, big games, you know, you get a decent casual crowd.

16:18So it's just important that they start to feel that experience. And obviously we still play some at the stadium. So the first time they play for the club isn't the first time they've walked into the stadium. But you're just trying to get, and it's all little goals, little targets, little achievable things I want to get from there into that dressing room, into that level, want to be in that group. and then all the while obviously trying to make sure you look out for the ones that aren't going to make it and you make sure you do your best with them which is very important. The expectations on the Premier League owners now is to do everything world class, isn't it?

16:51At every level of detail of everything that you see. I mean obviously you go to Manchester City which I've been a couple of times there training on Tottenham's but you've built something here which is maybe not the same scale, they've probably got bigger facilities but the actual quality of the facilities is exactly the same. It's almost like an expectation that you have to spend a lot of money to compete now. Do you feel like yourself, that pressure? You talked about upstairs when I leave this place. Yes. Do you feel like it's getting harder every year to compete with those sort of bigger clubs and what you're having to do to compete with them and the money you're having to spend to compete with them?

17:24You're only going to get better and get closer to those clubs if you do do it, right? I mean, when I, one of of the main points that I'm here is when I was a kid, I went to Sellers Park and I went to Highbury and it wasn't that different an experience, really. Ripple dissolve to when I look at getting involved in the club and Sellers Park's worse than it was and they're in the Emirates, right? So, you know, you've got to try and catch up. What's the point if you're not trying to catch up, you know, and we've got to try and find slightly smarter ways of doing things or different ways of doing things.

17:56And I think in this, we've, you know, we've achieved that. If we can do that with the stadium, then we really are, you know, starting to get somewhere. I think in my business life, in my life, it's small achievable goals, right? If we can just get to the next level, which is we need to be a top 10 turnover club in the Premier League. That's what we need to get to. Is that the ambition? That's the ambition for me because that's a realistic ambition. Realistically, you know, we don't, unless somebody, Elon Musk comes along and wants to buy the club, you know, we're not going to get into the top four right now.

18:25Probably. We could have a worldy season like Leicester and I don't want to take anything away if it was a brilliant season. That could happen to us and we would love it if it did. But if you want sustainable long-term success, then you've got to improve the infrastructure. And for me, at least you feel like you're moving forward. I mean, what's the point of just being here for 10 years just to cling on to status in the division? I mean, and the odd cup final. I mean, that's great. And it's a lot of joy for fans and it's not worthless. It doesn't leave anything for anybody, does it? It doesn't make the club any better in the long term.

18:54What is the ambition with Sellers Park? Current capacity? What's the new capacity going to look like? The first phase will take us to£35, but the advantage we've got in London is obviously premium seating. So what you really want to do is keep the GA prices down as low as possible so you make it accessible and then subsidise that effectively. You don't want to upset that fan base behind that goal, do you? Trust me, I know them personally, I definitely don't. I mean, I look at them sometimes, it's actually old school back then. It's brilliant on a match day there, the atmosphere's fantastic, but they are passionate, aren't they?

19:25I think they've affected a lot of other clubs as well. I think we can see little groups like that forming. I think some other clubs, even some maybe bigger clubs have gone, maybe if we stop moaning and actually start trying to help the lads on the pitch. You know as a player, I think sometimes fans think when we say we wouldn't have been able to do it with the fans' support and all that kind of stuff, that the fans don't think we really mean it. But you know as a player what a crowd can do. Do you enjoy being a Premier League owner? Or does it feel like a... What you've got to try and manage as a footballer or as a chairman, owner, is the losing and the winning, right?

20:03Yeah. You just can't be driven by that. I try not to get too knocked off by bad results. I try not to get too euphoric by the good results. I try and go to every game. How's that go, the results-based? Because it's horrible when you lose a game. Well, I've arrived at when you lose, you need to go out. When you win, you need to stay in. you know right stay in and relax I thought you were going to say win or lose on the booze then for a second no that was the old motto I don't drink anymore but when I used to drink you definitely if you've beaten Arsenal and you're hot you definitely don't want to go out I think you know it's a good when you lose you've just got to go out and try and think about something else I mean most of managing that kind of stuff what did we say what were we all saying the other week when we won four games and we were fundamentally out of trouble you have a week where you're not thinking about football for a bit you know where it's not constantly on your mind.

20:53So when things are bad, just trying to take your mind off it, really, and just trying to do something else. I've got some other businesses, and every now and again, I'll get involved in a bit of a project with that just to remind myself that I know what I'm doing. Because football's so out of your control. The way I put it to people is you're in a profession where the ball goes to the left of the post, and you're an idiot. People are writing articles about how stupid you are, and you've signed all the wrong players, and it goes to the right of the post, and you're a genius. but it's just a tiny bit of luck is a difference sometimes.

21:24We all know how difficult it is for an owner to sack a manager. It's difficult. How are you in that moment where you're feeling like you might need to make a change? Does it affect the rest of your life? It must do, really. Yes, that's awful. I would say that's probably much worse than losing at the game, particularly because, by and large, all the managers I've had have been brilliant blokes. you know so you've got this personal relationship and sometimes as well you know it's like a runaway train you can see it going wrong and you can't really help you know because what do you do? Start telling them this is who you should play this is what you should do What do you do?

22:03Because I mean I've been in that position myself at a lot lower level where you want to give them time to breathe but you also want to make sure that you give them that sort of not warning but that information that makes them feel like come on things need to improve as well it's so hard to get it right i mean i think it's so hard to get right at the end of it you know in the more recent one you know i'll be candid and say could i could i put more pressure on maybe you know could i have said more pressure on patrick yes you know in what way just said look you know things need to improve patrick you know you need to sort it out or but i don't know that that makes any difference i don't know that really helps that help yeah just muddling their mind even more, right?

22:42You know, I think that you've got to give people space to work and do it in the way they want to do it. Obviously, we've got a sporting department and, you know, the sporting department I think are more involved in how we're playing and often managers want to ask you, you know, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? That feeling that you have the morning, you know, have you called that meeting the day before? Is it part of your natural daily work or have you said, look, Patrick, I want to see you in an hour? Is there a bit of a a little bit of a stomach churning, sort of a little bit of a sickly feeling.

23:12Of course. You'd be in human, wouldn't you, if you didn't have that. In the end, there's no good way of delivering that kind of news. I always think the thing to do when you have the conversation is deliver it early, right? There's no preamble that makes it better, is there? In this case, maybe I could have done it differently. You do want to get to people quickly. I always feel, if you say to somebody, oh, can you come and see in my office? They know. They know. So you've got two hours or an hour and you're dragging them to the office for a five minute conversation, which is, you know, really all that matters.

23:45Were you really worried about going down? I mean, there's been so many managerial changes in this last few months. You're one of them, but yours has been quite successful. Is it just purely because of that reason or is there any other reason? Yeah, you wouldn't change, you know, in the season. You know, I think we were hoping to get to the end of the season and then make some changes with Patrick. That was really what we were thinking. We'd had those discussions. He had a tough run of games. Did you think about giving him that next run of games, which on paper were a lot easier? Well, I mean, I think this is when it comes to watching every minute, right?

24:16It's not just about what the results are, it's about how you're playing. And of course, in that run of games, we lost to Southampton in the Cup, we lost to Villa, we drew in with Brentford in the last minute. So there were plenty of signs, you know, about the way we were playing. With three games, we didn't have a shot on target. We were the only team in 2023 in Europe that hadn't won. who knows in hindsight we might have been okay but of course the other thing is it's not just a question of not getting relegated you don't want to be down there in the luck with a couple of games to go because then luck just starts playing a massive part right so um you want to be where we are which is out of it you know the relegation fight is fascinating as long as you're not in it right I mean but we did have some decent results against some better teams you know we've got some draws, but there was just something that wasn't quite right.

25:03And then of course, any other bad luck layered on that, and you really are going to struggle. And I think to the point where everybody's leaving a little bit of a belief in each other. I want to get the same perspective. We had a great season with Patrick the first season, a fantastic season. We got to the Cups in the final, we played some unbelievable football, and Patrick will be a fantastic manager in my view. And he'll learn from this experience and the experience he's had, let's face it, at the end of the day, nearly two years in a Premier League job, getting to a cup semi-final, keeping Crystal Palace in the Premier League, being here when we did some fantastic recruitment, that's a pretty good, solid CV for a Premier League manager.

25:41I think that man management and getting the group all pointed in the right direction and feeling positive and feeling inspired every day and having a purpose is underrated, I think. I don't think people realise how important. I think we've got into a world now where particularly managers are studying tactics and data and you know they're all over all of that technical stuff but the human side just forgetting the human side of it is that why you brought Roy back is that was that behind the decision that you just wanted someone that you knew could bond with the players and basically bring a cohesion straight away yes because I think every manager that you bring in is a risk in that regard and obviously I knew what the lads all thought about Roy.

26:20To have four years with a manager, to have that fantastic ending, for the players to revere him. I would say something people would find probably interesting is that at 75 years old, because Roy understands footballers and he understands what they think and what they want, Roy is probably the best manager I've had at relating to the players of every age, whether it's a Michael Alisi or a James MacArthur. Roy knows exactly the right thing to say to them, when to say it, has little side interest in their personal life, finds out lots about them in the background. And he's just excellent at making sure that everybody understands why he's making the decisions he's making and keeps everybody on side in that regard.

27:05You got criticism, I think, for going back to yourself, but you soon put that to bed, didn't you? They were very persuasive. Sometimes you would be deemed as being more defensive coach. You get sometimes annoyed by that description.

27:23Hi, everyone. I hope you're enjoying this episode. This is just a quick thank you to Skybet, our partners, for making this show happen. It's something I've wanted to do for a long, long time. Please subscribe. There's loads more episodes coming up and I hope you're enjoying it.

27:53Roy, well I'm delighted to see you. You too, Gary. Join us on the overlap and be here at Crystal Palace's training ground. So, seven weeks ago, you got a phone call. Indeed. How did that come about? Well, it came as a surprise, really. I had no inkling that there was any change in the offing at Crystal Palace or anywhere else for that matter. I wasn't expecting a phone call, but I received it first from Doug Freeman. That same evening I met with Steve Parrish and they told me what they intended to do and they explained to me that they would like myself and me to come back to the club where we'd served for four years and see out the season.

28:33I was happy to oblige. was there any point in that conversation or in those early sort of hours after the call that you thought, what am I doing? I'm relaxed here. I've run my race. You've run many races. Yeah, I've run many races, you're right. I suppose, to be honest, there was. But on the other hand, there was also the excitement and they were very persuasive, Doug and Steve, that they thought it was the right thing to do at this moment in time. And they made it very clear they were really going to support Ray and I They thought that we would be able to do what they expected us to do. And of course, knowing that I was going to see some of the players that I already knew were good players and could help us out.

29:17And I watched some of these younger ones that had been signed and thought, these look exciting. So I knew I was going to come into a squad of players with good potential. And I also knew, of course, I was going to get all the support I could possibly get from the owner and the sporting director and the staff around, whom I also know well from my previous time here. There was a lot of surprise at the time, wasn't there? One, that obviously Patrick had been sacked, but also they got criticism, I think, for going back to yourself. And there was some scepticism, but you soon put that to bed, didn't you?

29:46Yeah, well, I mean... What did you say to the scepticism first? They were brave for making that decision, weren't they? They were very brave for making the decision. I think the problem is that, as a coach, people are always very anxious to label you. and often the labels aren't strictly correct because the labels often are going to depend upon what players you find at the club and the thing I've done in my career, I haven't built a career around recruiting and signing players and asking clubs to spend lots and lots of money getting a group of players together that I particularly want. I've gone into places where they've said, these are the players we've got and could you help us form a team from these players and maybe help make the players a bit better?

30:27and then sometimes of course you don't necessarily reach the heights in that situation but I must say that the four years that Ray and I spent here keeping the team in the league I still would like to put that right near the top of any achievements I've had in the game because it wasn't easy we didn't have money to spend the team was aging and yet still they produced performances which were good enough to keep us around the middle of the table and give us another the year each time in the premiership, which is not to be taken for granted. What was that first message that you gave the players on that first day in training?

31:01What was the thing that you said to them when you addressed them first? Because obviously at that point, there was a danger of relegation, wasn't there? Yeah, there was. It was low-key. It certainly wasn't any Churchillian-type speeches. There wasn't reference to, you know, we've got 10 cup finals. None of that. It was really more, right, we know what we want from you and we're going to work very hard to try and make sure that you understand what we want and try and bring out what we think are the best of your qualities. And all we can expect from you, really, is for you to get behind that and to show us in every training session that you're on board with what we as a football team are trying to do and that you believe, like we do, it will give some results and then we'll take it game by game and see where it brings us.

31:47What was your first session with them? Was it an attacking session or was it a defensive session? Attacking session. We were sensible enough, I think, to say, listen, we don't want to come in here and the first sessions we do are organising defensively. Let's start with the attacking play that, to be frank, both way and I prefer to do anyway. I find the defending side of the game and organising teams defensively an easier task than organising teams offensively. because I think teams need organising offensively. You need structure there. You need moves. You need to know what the guy in front of you, just behind you and a bit further in front of you are doing and how they're going to liaise with you in your movements.

32:29They need to know that. And that's on the training field. Every bit as much as a defensive organisation is on the training field. So, you know, in answer to your question, I think there was a definite bias towards a bit more of the attacking play. It takes me back to a conversation, you may not remember it, but obviously when I was with England, I'd had the Valencia experience. And I remember always thinking that managers went into football clubs sometimes when they were struggling, because Valencia were struggling a little bit when I got there, and thought, well, let's sort the defence out. And I remember you saying to me, you should have really worked on the attacking principles first, because that's harder to get over to the team.

33:04And you've just reiterated that to me now. It's just actually come back to me, that feeling of putting your attacking principles into the players. and quickly did you realise that this was a group of players that could definitely score goals because of your first match. I mean, you had 34 shots on target. It flipped straight away. I think I sort of knew that before I actually joined them because I'd seen games, albeit on the television. I realised there's a lot of attacking talent here. There's players with exceptional technical skills, good pace as well. And Will Vazaha, of course, who'd been very good first during the four years.

33:36I knew that with these guys, we had athleticism. We had pace, athleticism, we had technique. So there was no reason why, if we could get these players into the right positions, that they couldn't score goals. There was no reason not to believe that. But we had to make certain that we made them focus very much on the moves and the type of play and the type of actions that were going to be necessary for them to get in those positions. And then we made it clear to them, look, when it happens and you get there, we're 100 % behind you. So don't feel that you can't take the shot or you can't make the dribble because you might just lose the ball.

34:14We will be more angry with you if you don't take the shot and don't lose the ball and play the simpler pass and start attacks again. It takes us a lot of effort and a lot of good play quite often through the back, through the midfield to get into that final third, into good attacking situations. You've got to profit from them because if not, you start all over again and there's no guarantee the next situation will be any better than the one you've just created. Sometimes you would be deemed as being more defensive coach. And I've seen you work for four years and most of the work was attacking.

34:46Do you get sometimes annoyed by that description when you've achieved what you've achieved in the game and when you see what you're achieving now at Crystal Palace? Is annoyed the wrong word? No, not really. I'm a bit angry. Yeah. I think it's part and parcel of perception. and the perception is going to be through the mass media. It's going to be through your results as well. So, in fact, a lot of it, I think, started with us when we had the game against Brighton where they outplayed us in terms of possession and we had to defend for our lives and came away winning the game, which was, of course, a bit of a steal if you look at the game.

35:24They had more shots, they had more possession. So I think sometimes people see that and then that's it. And also, with the team we had, at the time, certainly towards the end of that. The first year when I came here, when we had some quite good attacking players, we had Loftus-Cheek, we had Kabai and people like that, I thought our attacking player that year was quite good. Perhaps we didn't always replace them with quite the same level of attacking flair, and that made us perhaps a little bit more ordinary as a team. But then my mantra with the team has always been that I'm there to do the job that's required.

36:01It was always made clear to me during my four years here that our principal goal is to stay in this league. And that's not going to be easy because, you know, we can't say we're much, much better than the other teams. We're going to be in a group of teams, all of which, if it goes against us, we'll find ourselves in or near the relegation zone. Your job is to keep us away from there. In the four years, you know, we were here, we were never in the relegation zone after that first seven. I came after four games when we were in the relegation zone. And then lost the next three, I think. And then lost the next three, so I managed to keep us there until at least seven games.

36:36But then we started to climb, and from that then we were never in the relegation zone after that. When you talk about a relegation battle, and this season's relegation battle seems one of the most ferocious that we've seen for a long time. What have you done? The turnaround's been absolutely mesmerising. Well, I think if you're going to bring any calmness and belief and to try and, if you like, promote some sort of faith in the group itself, that, you know, we're good enough and we can do that, you've got to have the faith yourself. I was pretty convinced that we were going to give the right messages, we were going to do the right training sessions, we were going to give the right support, and as a result, we had to show a bit of character ourselves.

37:17So if things had not gone well right from the start, we'd have had to show some character. We'd have had to deal with the disappointment. Because if we'd have started then to crumble into all of the fancy messages you give in the two weeks before the first game, when you lose the first game, they all crumble. Then there's no doubt that would be a disaster for your future. What do you think of the players that you've got here? I want to talk about the younger players, Gaghi, the centre-back, Elyse, Eze. Obviously, Wilford's not young anymore, but the talented players. do you feel like if Crystal Palace can hold these together that's the top half of the table team next season 100 % without a shadow of a doubt I mean there's obviously one or two positions that the club are still concerned about and maybe like to improve the club obviously do like to hold on to Will so hard but we can't give any guarantee that will happen which would create another vacuum where it unfortunately happened how would he leave when he's got such stability here no I don't know I mean, I'm in a situation here in this short period of time where I really just want to concentrate on the games ahead and the people I've got.

38:29I don't want to start delving too much into what I think you should do, Wilf, and what I think you shouldn't do, Wilf. He knows that I'm here if he wants any advice from me, but it'll be from him coming to me, not me pushing advice on him. But I think that you wouldn't need an awful lot here, I don't think, in terms of players to come in. and even this year I think we should probably, with this team, have finished somewhere between 12 and 8. The big question is if you really feel like some teams do, we've got to break into that six. And there you are talking about the really big spending clubs who can go out and scour Europe.

39:09Recruit will cost some money, but I don't think it should be recruitment whereby it's recruitment to be as good as Chelsea or Man United or Liverpool because I think they are clubs that we should accept. We might not reach their level, but if we can keep competing with them and if we can keep being in the same sort of ballpark and if we can get in that top half of the table and we're Crystal Palace Football Club, I think that's a great pat on the back for the club. You said something before about that you'd not be one of those people who demands players. You get given a group of players and you actually...

39:44That's your upbinger in, I would say, in your earlier coaching career because a lot of the English managers of the 80s and sort of maybe early 90s, they were deemed to be in control of everything, weren't they? Yes, yes, yes. But you've come through a completely different way. You're more of a coach on the grass that lets the other people get on with the recruitment side of it. Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, as the sort of head coach or manager, whatever you like to call the head person responsible for Teed's performance, you want to have quite a big say in that side of things. and to be fair a coach's life to some extent is always going to be a transient one so these people if they're putting all their eggs into your basket and saying now there's 100 million pounds of my money and you just bring the players you want they don't know you're going to be there for five years to see those players through to fruition you might get a better offer so off you go and then they're stuck with them so I think I've always understood that aspect of it you were used to that in Italy weren't you as well and other countries it's actually something that you're completely used to It's only just come in England in the last probably, I would say five to ten years.

40:47I'd say a bit longer than that. But you're absolutely right. Italy gave me that, of course. It was very difficult to persuade them to sign the players you wanted, that's for sure. There weren't many players that came to Inter that I was 100 % the man who bought them in. But luckily, a few good ones came in during that time and we were able to survive with the ones that I found I had to work with. What's the one thing that you say that you've had to instil here that you thought, right, I've got to fix that, I've got to get that right? I'm not sorry to leave that behind, if I'm to be brutally honest.

41:20I find that more demanding and more tiring than the football.

41:39you're 75 no 76 this year in a couple of months yeah how long is this going to go on for this coaching dream that's existed now you've got your coaching badges first when you were 23 didn't you Yeah, that's right. So that's how long? I don't know. It's a dream anymore, anyway. I think... Is it a nightmare? It's not a nightmare either. No, it's... Yeah, I remember you said to me, actually, I enjoy it Monday to Friday. It's just a game day. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's the old classic. It wasn't because I was desperately sitting at home and thinking, oh, God, I've got to get back. So I can honestly say that.

42:13But I can also honestly say that both at Watford and here, I enjoyed coming back. I enjoyed going out and putting a tracksuit on again and, you know, getting out with the players, even though my ability to kick the ball seems to have degenerated enormously over the last five years. Do you have someone kicking it next to you now? Basically, occasionally, but not like I used to. You'd have seen a better kicking side than the people see now. You do 80 % of all the sessions. I mean, you might not do the possession in the very beginning of the session, but all the tactical and the pattern work, you've always done that all the way through your career.

42:47You've always been a coach, haven't you? You've always been hands on. I'm a much better delegator than I once was. I mean, in the beginning, you know, and what's more, if I look back to my very early career, I was far too active myself. I enjoyed playing football and, you know, kicking the ball too much myself. I'd be taking things away from the players, really. I lost track that it's the players that count, not me. But I'm very lucky here, and I've been for a number of years, to have Ray with me, who's very good, and of course, sings absolutely off the same hymn sheet. and now we had David Reddington who was at the club and we moved up and now it's Paddy McCarthy also very good coaches so I'm not averse these days to have them chipping in as well so it's more than one voice I find that very useful What's the one thing that you say that you've had to instill that you saw in the early days or early couple of weeks here that you thought right I've got to fix that I've got to get that right Not a lot really Gary to be honest I think the way we like to defend and what we like our midfield players, especially our front players, if you're going to play with a three, the way we like them to defend, that wasn't necessarily what they'd been asked to do before.

44:02So we had to try and persuade them that this is what we would like them to do now. Are you still making out that the wingers play the ball? You never used to like the ball? No, no. You never used to like the ball? It's interesting. it's a tactical thing, but Roy never used to like the wide play, if the full-back was on the ball, he never used to like the full-back playing the ball outside, you always wanted him to play in there. Yeah, absolutely, although it's harder and harder to, I mean, in an ideal world, we do talk about angles of approach, and in an ideal world for your full-back, but because we play relatively narrow, our concern always is where the goals are scored is in that sort of central area, and more and more the good teams, they cut you apart, They use the wide players to drag you apart to open those gaps through the centre.

44:46So we've identified that's the area we've got to be really strong in. But you can't be strong everywhere. So if you're going to be strong there, you're going to accept that the wider ones maybe have a bit more time on the ball or get more chance to get the ball. So the player who's going out there will find it quite hard a lot of the time to get that angle. If it's coming straight down the line, then I think that one of the balls which concerns everyone in football today when you're defending is that ball which goes like a straight ball past you and then a run comes in between you and the centre-back.

45:19I mean, so many teams are very good at doing that. Where the wide player runs inside the full-back. And sometimes it's an underlapping full-back. It can be a midfield player or a centre-forward. Anyone can get in and do it. and in an ideal world you would probably try and stop that by getting in line with the straight ball so it can't go there for that run and make them go back inside. So I would still definitely embrace that principle but it's getting harder and harder in a lot of games so we try to make certain that we cover the spaces where that run will be because we know that quite often our players going out to pressurise the ball aren't going to be able to angle their runs to get in that position.

46:01You've seen football now over five decades and you've seen it over three decades in the Premier League. I only finished, I think, 11 years ago. I'm stunned by the technical ability of the current players aligned with the speed and physicality. I don't think it's ever been as good as in the technical ability of the players with the speed that they actually do it at. Do you agree with that? I've seen the game over 30 years. I couldn't agree more. And, of course, it's partly due to the fact that you know we now with the money that is in the Premier League and the great job that Scudermore did really and I must take my hat off to the clubs as well to have such a such a fair league where the money is distributed as as fairly it's not just two clubs taking the lot and that's given us a very competitive and and fair league as well but what it's meant is from number one to number 20 all the teams can go out and and and and what's more like they can recruit on a personal level I always remember Sir Alex saying I think maybe towards the end when I was there that being around young people kept him young.

47:02Yes. Is there an element of that with yourself? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think it's real fun to be around. I just think you have to be careful that you don't try to become one of them. You know, you don't try to, you know, start discussing music or films or books. How does that go in your music choices aligned with the lads in the dressing room? Yeah, I don't listen to it very often. I don't think they were like... there's one or two they play that I rather like, so I don't mind listening to, but that was always the case anyway. And I just think that most of our discussions revolve around football, but it is nice to see them.

47:42And I think that they do give you some energy. You know, I think just being in the job energises you. There's no doubt I've felt energised these last two months or so, more so than perhaps I was when my life was more mundane in terms of going down the gym, going for walks, finding a nice restaurant for lunch or dinner. And that was good too. I don't want to complain about that. Sounds like my life. Just in case Sheila's watching this, I'll make that clear. I was happy with that as well. I'm really sorry that you did enjoy that time as well. But I've been energised, I've got to say. And it's been good in the sense that it's been like it should be, like it's basically been all of my life.

48:22when I get up in the morning there's been moments of course like for everybody else but largely I've looked forward to going to the Cup I've looked forward to meeting the people I've looked forward to meeting the players because I think as a coach and if you're talking about young coaches who might watch this I think that having sympathy and empathy with your players is vitally important once you start moving away from that and you start getting angry with them or disliking them because they're not doing exactly what you think they should do, that's when your chance of really coaching starts to diminish.

49:00I mean, I struggled with that, Roy, to be fair. I think we talked about this quite a bit when I was with England. Do you think that's why quite a few players who have maybe played at the elite level struggle when they go into coaching? Absolutely, I do entirely. Because the generation of players or the people you found at the club were not going to reach that level of professionalism. I think if you've not had that level yourself, you can be probably a bit kinder anyway. A better teacher. Yeah, probably. Because coaching is communication. And to do that, you do need a degree of empathy with the people you're working with.

49:30In an ideal world, the coach will come off after defeat not angry at a player for having made a mistake, but to some extent sympathising with the player for unfortunately having made a mistake, which he didn't want to do, and you, the team, didn't want, but it's happened. Now, I'm speaking very... That's a good quality to have to be able to do that. It is, but I don't think many people have got it, and I don't know I've got it. But, I mean, that's the ideal situation. That's what you should be aiming for. But you've been able to adapt over five different decades of coaching through changing times.

50:04Technology has come in, sports science has come in, players have changed, more international players, more technical players, and you've had to adapt, and you have adapted. Yeah, I think I'm quite proud of that, because I'm quite proud of the fact that my career has lasted so long and I suppose I'm proud too that at my age where people could quite easily have said well his time's gone but being proud of things and being proud of careers it doesn't help you a great deal football and you know this as much as I do it's the next one when you're working you're always thinking well how do I prepare the next game we've done the right training sessions am I picking the right team and that's the life that you choose to keep going that way and if you choose to keep going that way, you've got to be able to adapt.

50:50Do you buy into the theory that you've got to be a little bit mad to be a manager? No, not really, no. You've got to be able to want this. I mean, the interviews, do you enjoy the interviews after the game and pre-game? To be fair, I'd be quite lucky there. I mean, at Fulham and here at Palace and even at Watford, you're not dealing with the real cutthroat journalists who want to try and reduce you to tears. So I've got to say I don't put myself out for that And I've been really What you did do with England And with Liverpool And with Interplan They were huge They were, yeah And I'm not sorry to leave that behind If I'm to be brutally honest Because that is a part of the job Which I find that more demanding And more intellectually tiring Than the football The football doesn't tire me But sometimes preparing for those interviews And being ready for the right questions And choosing every single word correctly and making certain you didn't say something that was going to rebound upon you.

51:48And in particular with England, it was more a question of feeling all the time that the journalists, through their various contacts, knew more than us. So, you know, you got the question and you're thinking, well, hold on, I don't know if I know the answer, but you probably do, you know. So, no, I don't miss that side of it. And the mass media have been kind to me, basically speaking, so I've got literally no complaints about that. Great to speak to you. Thank you, Roy. Thank you so much.