Martin Kelly Praises Crystal Palace Squad and Manager, Backs Survival

Former Crystal Palace full-back Martin Kelly expressed his conviction that the current team possesses “a really good manager” and supported the Eagles’ home form as a key factor for their survival in the Premier League this season. Despite Palace being positioned in the relegation zone, Kelly stated during an appearance on BBC World Service’s Sportsworld programme that he does not perceive their top-flight status to be at risk. Kelly stated, “”They’ve got a really good manager in Oliver [Glasner],” he said, “and the home form at Palace always gets them over the line. They always manage to get results against the big sides and it’s the sides who are in and around the same position as Palace they’ll be looking to try and get the results against. The injuries aren’t great for Palace at the minute, but they’ve still got a really good squad.”” Having spent eight years at Selhurst Park, Kelly observed a diverse array of managers throughout his tenure. He elaborated that particular managerial philosophies proved more compatible with the club’s player roster than others. Kelly stated, “”When a manager comes in, you know if you have the right players to play his tactics,” Kelly said. “We went from Sam Allardyce, who really simplified the game of football to Frank [de Boer], who was total football at Ajax and tried implementing that in Inter but that never worked out and then came to us. “It was the first big risk that the chairman at Palace and the board took with us as players and it was probably four or five seasons too early. If Frank was back now, it may have been different.“The most modern manager we had was Patrick [Vieira] who was trying to imprint his philosophy and style of play of was playing out from the back and it was at probably the right time. “The difficulty with Frank was we didn’t have the players to play out from the back and in the Premier League you don’t get time. We had the pre-season – that was it.”” He further commented, “”The rest of the managers were all sort of similar, quite structured and Roy [Hodgson] was ultra defensive. Roy was very big on not conceding and never scored that much, which ultimately probably cost him his job in the end. Palace stayed up for so many years but wanted to see more football. Fair play to the fans for wanting that.””