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Frank de Boer: Crystal Palace to play like Ajax
The new Crystal Palace manager, Frank de Boer, says he wants his side to dominate opponents in the same way as Ajax, the club where he learned his trade.
De Boer has signed a three-year contract at Selhurst Park and has been tasked by the chairman, Steve Parish, with turning perennial relegation battlers into a “solid” Premier League side. The former Dutch international, who won multiple titles as both player and manager at Ajax, replaces Sam Allardyce, who stood down from the role last month.
“I want a team where the fans are excited to come to our games, to see a team that wants to win and wants to fight for every minute,” said De Boer of his vision for the club. “ That’s always the starting point for me. [At Ajax] it’s also in our DNA to try and play technical football and dominate. When you do that and do that well it’s a plus, it’s attractive and it looks nice.
“We are not naive. I want to play dominant when we can be dominant. But we want to dominate with and without the ball. You can be dominant without the ball by trying to move the opposition where you want them to go.
“I was attracted by the opportunity of managing in the Premier League. This is a club that can still go further and further. Every English club in the Premier League has money so there is the possibility to do something. There is a lot of perspective for this club to be a solid Premier League club.”
De Boer becomes the seventh Crystal Palace manager since Parish bought the club in 2010 and the first non-Briton to hold the role in that time. Parish attended the press conference to introduce De Boer and was in voluble mood, explaining his aspiration for the club he called “one of the most desirable jobs in football”.
“There were 37 managers on the shortlist,” Parish said. “I talked to all the potential managers and said: we need an evolution over a period of time. We’ve been in the bottom three two seasons in a row for home form, sooner or later that’s going to catch up with us. Frank’s No1 brief is to reduce the anxiety for me and the supporters.
READ MORE: Crystal Palace announce de Boer as Allardyce replacement
“From the start when I walked into the club we developed a certain style of play; partly because it’s part of the DNA of the club and frankly because it’s less expensive. If you want to play on the break in the Championship it’s less expensive than if you want a lot of technical midfielders. That stuck with us a little bit.”
He added: “I think we’ve got players who are technically better than that now but it’s also not a sustainable model. We can all point to Leicester winning the league doing it but we all know that was a bit of an anomaly. This year when I watched Swansea and us, I thought the way Swansea played gave them a higher percentage chance of getting a result.”
Parish said he and De Boer had many conversations about football before they struck an agreement and the Dutchman says he intends to see out the three years of his contract if he lasts in the job that long.
Palace’s pre-season programme begins on Friday with De Boer set to meet most of his players then. The make-up of his backroom staff remains undecided but the 47-year-old said he hopes to keep Sammy Lee, who was assistant manager under Allardyce.
