Roy Hodgson confident of being offered new Crystal Palace deal

Crystal Palace manager Roy Hodgson is confident chairman Steve Parish will put a new contract in front of him soon.

The Eagles are in the middle of a poor run of form, with one win registered from their last 11 matches in all competitions.

A trip to Merseyside to face a resurgent Everton on Saturday is up next, where Palace will hope to halt a recent slide which has seen talk of a top-seven finish turn into relegation fears again.

Since Hodgson replaced Frank De Boer in September 2017, he has steered the club to safety in both of his two seasons in charge, but his current deal at the club is due to expire this summer and recent reports have suggested talks over new terms have stalled.

“I can’t demand that a contract is put on the table, that has to come from them, but I have never had any real doubt or fears that wouldn’t happen,” the Palace manager said.

“Certainly it has been made clear to me now that’s something the chairman really wants to do. He wants to put that contract in front of me for me to look at and sign.

“So here we are, obviously a lot closer in that respect than maybe some people have given the club credit for.”

Hodgson insisted there was plenty to be positive about, despite the Eagles now sitting only six points above the bottom three.

Safety is always the prime target for the club and the 72-year-old feels that will be achieved again this season.

Asked if Palace can eye loftier ambitions, Hodgson added: “You have to be very careful before you start pushing barriers higher and higher.

“It is getting harder and harder just to reach that barrier that so many of us at the start of the season see as our major goal to have the club in the same league at the end of the season.

“There are literally half a dozen teams who wouldn’t even contemplate it but there are a lot more that do because we know how tough the competition is and how easy it is to get into a run of negative results.

“It is a question of keeping your feet on the ground, keeping level headed, but certainly I would never wish to say to our fans that the only ambition this club has is to stay in the league. That’s not true at all.

“Of course to improve our ambition we have to make certain that the recruitment matches our ambition.”

Palace’s manager feels that had Nathan Ferguson moved to SE25 from West Brom on deadline day, the outlook would be a lot more positive.

That failed transfer, coupled with new loan signing Cenk Tosun suffering a hamstring injury, has contributed to negatives building up.

Hodgson admitted Ferguson could still complete a switch to Palace in the summer if an operation on his knee goes successfully, with the full-back out of contract at the end of the season.

“We don’t deny that this is a player we would have liked to have signed until such time as this situation occurred and it’s got to be resolved now by this operation,” he said.

“After the operation we’ll know so much more, so at this moment in time it’s very difficult for me to say this is what we want to do or this is not what we are going to do.

“We’ve got to wait until the operation’s over, get the information back, find out what it means and then hopefully kick on from there.”