Manager in pole position to replace Hodgson as decision is made

Crystal Palace’s humbling defeat at the hands of Brighton and Hove Albion was seemingly just about the last straw for chairman, Steve Parish, as he continues to consider the future of Roy Hodgson.

The Premier League’s elder statesman has seen his Eagles side continue to drop down the Premier League table and, at the time of writing, Palace are just five points off the bottom three.

In much the same way as Patrick Vieira couldn’t get a tune out of the South Londoners before he was sacked by Parish and replaced with Hodgson, now the former England manager seems unable to get any sort of consistency to Palace’s top-flight results.

The recently sacked Steve Cooper, relieved of his duties by Nottingham Forest, is believed to be the front runner to replace Hodgson, with The Guardian (subscription required) noting that Parish had considered sacking his manager in the aftermath of the Brighton game.

Given the way Palace are playing there is a very real risk of relegation unless Parish wields the axe.

It does appear that he’s willing to do so now, perhaps reluctantly given the strength of his relationship with Hodgson.

However, the issue that he has is that Cooper, whilst interested in taking over, isn’t sure that now is the right time to do so because of how little time he will have to prepare the team ahead of the next set of fixtures.