Hodgson emphasized how the Premier League’s elite teams have an advantage when it comes to spotting talent.
According to Roy Hodgson, it is “quite amazing” that Crystal Palace can compete with the best clubs in spite of their vastly different financial resources.
Currently in their eleventh season at the top of English football, Palace is ranked 15th out of all the Premier League teams based on net spend over the last five years. Nevertheless, they have made a name for themselves as elite players.
After placing between 10th and 15th in each of those seasons, the team is comfortably in the middle of the league this year after pushing both Arsenal and Tottenham close at home and defeating Manchester United at Old Trafford.
After Patrick Vieira’s departure last season, Hodgson made his second visit to Selhurst Park and feels that it is a great accomplishment for teams like Palace to be competitive in the Premier League.
“I think it’s quite amazing that we as a football club – and we’re not alone, I put other clubs in the category – can compete as well as we do in what has become a very uneven playing field,” the 76-year-old stated to the FYP Podcast.
“Because so many teams above us are able to go out and scour Europe, scour the continent, scour Africa for the best players.”
Palace’s recruitment under sporting director Dougie Freedman has been impressive in recent seasons, with Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guehi among the first-teams stars who will bring in huge profit should they be sold. All three have seen their stock rise significantly since making the move to Selhurst Park.
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Hodgson pointed to the significance of improving players through coaching in the absence of being able to compete with bigger clubs in the transfer market, using Liverpool midfielder Dominik Szoboszlai as an example.
“There’s no prizes for working out that Szoboszlai is a good player,” Hodgson said. “You’d have to be living on another player if you were looking for a midfield player and hadn’t thought of Szoboszlai.
“But the truth is that that player was only available to a select few clubs. We must thus commit to giving the ones we have our all in order to help them perform to the best of their abilities and engage in level competition with these individuals.
“That’s what Palace have done for a number of years, it’s what Palace will continue to do.”
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