I'm intrigued to know how they are going to announce Roy Hodgson's departure and his replacement. There's obviously some respect being paid to Hodgson by allowing the end of our season to be about him, rather than his successor. I reckon they'll leave it to ahead of the last game of the season so he can have his lap of honour and featurette on MOTD, and then announce the replacement the next day or something. Or possibly with two games to go so that there is time for him to be on Football Focus before the last game and they'll do a soppy retrospective.

That's all well and good if Hodgson intends to retire but if he doesn't and we don't renew his contract that will not reflect well.

How can we attract new players or even keep those that we already have if there is such a huge cloud hanging over the position of manager and the players obviously don't know what's happening as one of them is bound to have leaked it by now

No doubt everyone seems to be playing their cards very close! I agree with Midlands that’s not great from a players and potential player perspective.
Not long now though the season is nearly done - so we’ll find out soon.

Ralph Rangnick is a very good shout,i think he managed Shalka once and speaks very good English.

Announcement when mathematically safe? The longer it goes on the less likely he will be here next season.
I agree the clubs preferred choice is Dyche.
As a nod to the title of the post its a no to Howe.

Tend to agree with this,heard ages ago that Howe has the job,we will soon find out.

Trouble is that we also heard ages ago that both Lampard and Dyche also have the job too

I disagree with the idea that the manager and players know what is happening next year but are keeping quiet. Football doesn't really work that way anyway (it is notorious for gossip), but more to the point, presuming at least half the out of contract players and probably the management too will be leaving, why would a bunch of people who won't be here next year owe us their discretion?

The manager and players are not as in the dark as we are of course, simply because they will know for sure if each of them has been offered a contract or not. We have no idea on that front. Otherwise, I think they are all waiting to find out if they are wanted at Palace next year or not, as Townsend said recently.

The really interesting thing is that SP has attached so little value to the lot of them as to let their contracts run down like this. That might be a game of bluff on his part. If he acts too keen too quick to keep someone like Benteke or Townsend then they hold the upper hand, and will not entertain a reduced wage to stay. If he acts like he's quite prepared to lose them if they won't take a lower wage, then he holds the cards so long as nobody gazumps him. Perhaps he thought a combination of covid, the players current (unrealistic) wages, and poor performance levels had reduced the chances of someone else coming in and offering these players a pre-contract. Looks like he was right. Looks like he can offer some of these players a new deal on lower wages, and they might end up taking it now when they wouldn't have done 12 months ago. If so, it was a risk but it worked, well played SP.

Alternatively, maybe he just isn't interested in employing them again, but isn't saying so because they might down tools when we still need one more win.

Surely if Roy we’re leaving at the end of the season it’d be announced by now? It doesn’t serve anyone’s interest to wait until the end of the season, we’re already safe.

The only real reason to get rid of Roy at this point is to appease a quite vocal section of disgruntled fans. Other than that I’m not sure what Parish is set to gain from letting him go if he wants to stay on for another year.

The fact of the matter is we’re going to be hard pressed to do better than Roy, who is actually an underrated manager whose achievements have been insultingly disregarded by too many of our fans. We’re certainly not going to do better with some of the names mentioned here.

People will no doubt reference the brand of football but that doesn’t account for the lack of investment. Roy actually has a record of playing quite attacking football most places he’s been and if he were to replicate that with the squad we have, we’d be overrun week in week out. Even in this department, without investment, we’ll be hard pressed to do better than Roy. And some of the names quoted here are laughable. Dyche? What football are you expecting from him? Howe? He got relegated with a Bournemouth side that spent big. Lampard? Are you actually serious?

We're the Arthur over ere!

If Howe has the job, why are we showing Lampard around the training ground?