Roy Hodgson is expected to be asked to extend his stay at Crystal Palace for another season, with his assistant Paddy McCarthy lined up as the 75-year-old’s long-term replacement.
Hodgson has guided Palace to five victories from eight games since replacing Patrick Vieira and the club will match their best Premier League points tally of 49 if they win their final two fixtures, against Fulham and Nottingham Forest. Hodgson has yet to confirm he would like to carry on, but it is understood the Palace chairman, Steve Parish, is seriously considering a one-year deal that would extend the former England coach’s record as the league’s oldest-ever manager.
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That would include Hodgson retaining his long-term assistant Ray Lewington alongside McCarthy, the former Palace captain who took charge of the 4-1 defeat by Arsenal in March after Vieira was sacked as a result of a winless start to 2023. McCarthy is understood to have come close to being handed the role until the end of the season before Parish opted to bring back Hodgson. McCarthy, a highly rated coach who is popular with the players, began his coaching career with the club’s under-18s after retiring from playing in 2016.
The Dublin-born former defender is understood to have rejected offers of more senior roles at other clubs in the past and is said to have been working closely with Hodgson and Lewington – the first-team coach – over the past two months. With several other Premier League clubs in the market for managers, there is a recognition at Palace that finding a replacement will be difficult and there is hope that McCarthy can continue to develop under a manager who started in 1976.
Palace are expected to assess other candidates, who could include Lille’s Paulo Fonseca. But Palace’s youthful side have scored 15 goals since Hodgson’s return despite Wilfried Zaha sustaining two injuries, an indication of the progress being made at Selhurst Park. The midfielder Eberechi Eze has been in inspired form since returning to the team and is tipped for an England call-up and the defender Marc Guéhi and forward Michael Olise have been linked with moves to Arsenal and Paris Saint-Germain respectively.
The future of Zaha, who will miss the rest of the season after sustaining a hamstring injury in the win over Bournemouth on Saturday, also remains unclear. The 30-year-old’s contract expires at the end of June and he is understood to have been offered a two-year contract by Marseille worth significantly less than the four-year deal of £200,000 a week on the table from Palace.
