Crystal Palace should not abandon attempts at stability after Frank De Boer project fails

When Frank de Boer was unveiled as manager of Crystal Palace he made subtle suggestions that his side would play like his former employers Ajax. “It’s also in our DNA [At Ajax] to try and play technical football and dominate,” he said. “When you do that and do that well it’s a plus, it’s attractive and it looks nice.”

Unfortunately, his 77 days spent in charge felt less like the six successful seasons in Amsterdam, and more like his ill-fated 85 days in charge of Inter Milan. If the last week has been tough on De Boer, it has been a lesson in humility for owner Steve Parish. The club’s owner spoke with ambition when he unveiled his new Dutch coach in the summer, but as autumn approached he was taking responsibility for a catastrophic failure rather than a roaring success.

“Every time a manager fails at this club I fail,” he said. “If Frank fails it is my failure too.”

Since 2010, Parish has hired nine different permanent managers, but none have gone as badly as De Boer. The former defender replaced Sam Allardyce in the summer, and such a drastic change in ethos was always likely to cause growing pains. De Boer’s man-management was not the most diplomatic, (he is said to have alienated a number of senior players) but to him he was simply evaluating his new squad against an agreed philosophy.

READ MORE: Crystal Palace sack Frank de Boer after just FOUR matches in charge

READ MORE: The worst starts EVER to Premier League campaigns

READ MORE: Crystal Palace Fan View – sacking de Boer shows a lack of vision

READ MORE: 12 managerial reigns that make Frank de Boer’s Palace stint look lengthy

Joel Ward, a very solid Premier League right back, was adjudged by De Boer to be too slow to play as a wing back. Whether he was right or wrong it served as a microcosm for the discord between a football club and their new manager. Even little things — such as a desire to participate in training — rubbed his players up the wrong way and eventually culminated in a situation that was no longer tenable.

“I am not disappointed about the performance and it gives me a lot of hope for the future,” De Boer said after Sunday’s 1-0 defeat to Burnley. “I said straight after to the boys that if you do like this you will get your goals and your rewards.”

Any future rewards earned will be done so without De Boer at the helm. Dismissed earlier this week, it highlighted the quandary that Parish faces as owner of a club like Palace. When he hired De Boer it was to implement long-term stability to the club. However, he did not consider two important factors; his squad was in no way set up to mesh well with the man he was hiring, nor is the lifespan of a successful manager outside the top six that long.

Parish wanted to avoid the sweat inducing relegation battle of the last few seasons, and then grow. However, it is now more difficult than ever to keep a promising manager over a long period of time.

Ronald Koeman finished sixth in his second season at Southampton and was promptly snapped up by an Everton side with top four aspirations. Marco Silva was picked up from Hull by Watford and has begun brightly at Vicarage Road. If he can maintain a spot inside the top eight then he may be on the move once again as clubs look for a new head coach. That’s because it is no longer just top players that are coveted by rivals in the Premier League, but also their managers.

So what is the solution? A director of football seems the most obvious route to stability. Palace hired Dougie Freedman as sporting director in mid-August, by which point the warning signs of the De Boer era were already present and flashing. If Freedman, (or someone more experienced) had been in the role from the start of the summer the club may have been able to ease the transition of styles from Allardyce to De Boer.

READ MORE: Kane might be world class but needs to leave to win titles

READ MORE: Why Wenger needs to take Europa League seriously

READ MORE: Behind the scenes at Bilbao – LaLiga’s most unique club

The former Palace striker has only ever worked as a manager prior to his latest appointment, and that makes his ability hard to gauge. Even if De Boer was destined to fail from the outset, a liaison between the dressing room and the owners may have suggested a better fit for the club. Instead, the club have now appointed Roy Hodgson on a two-year-deal in the hope the former England boss can install some calm and stability to what has been a rocky start to the season.

Long-term, the club would be wise to install an infrastructure that means the manager or head coach is not the de facto influence on proceedings. Clubs like Southampton have implemented this with Les Reed and his role as Head of Football Development. During that time the Saints have established themselves in the Premier League, reached a League Cup final, and qualified for the Europa League, all while blooding a number of promising players from their youth academy.

Those probably sound like lofty goals for a team that is winless in their opening four games without a single goal scored. However, as the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is yesterday, and Palace should not be dissuaded in their attempts to achieve long-term stability because their first experiment ended in failure.