Some clubs are deciding to come off of social media in reaction to the continued racial abuse of footballers on the platforms. Is that a good move from the clubs? Will it be a way to persuade the companies to start taking sterner action?
Yes. I’m not an expert on the subject, I’m afraid. I’ve made that clear on several occasions. But I can’t see that it can do any harm in that respect. We do, all of us I think, want to see a more controlled environment from these big companies because some of the things that are happening and the abuse that players are suffering – I think that’s totally out of order in every respect. So if this is going to make them sit up and take some notice and controls can be stronger and social media will be able to prevent some of the worst excesses that we’re seeing, I can only see that as a good thing.
It’s only a few clubs who have taken the action, as well as Thierry Henry. Do you think it will take everyone doing it to have a big impact?
Well what’s happened so far it’s raising awareness. It can only be a good thing in my opinion. What it would take to really bring about the fundamental change which is perhaps necessary, I’m not in a great position to answer that one. But I’m pleased to see that there is a move afoot at least to try and make the companies a little more responsible for what is going out on their various platforms, and of course to most of all try and get rid of the situation where people can hide behind fictitious accounts so they can never be held accountable themselves because no-one knows who’s actually putting out the vile messages.
Would you back Crystal Palace if they took that decision to come off social media?
I would certainly back any decision of that type that the club makes, but at the same time I’m not aware at the moment that I’m being asked to back a decision there. Going forward, I’m pretty certain that our club will be monitoring the situation – as are probably all the clubs in the football league let alone the Premier League. Who knows what thoughts they will come up with, but I would perhaps be pretty sure I’d be happy to back any ideas that they have. But at this moment in time I can’t actually tell you where we stand on that.
Crystal Palace are no longer really in danger of relegation and European places look unlikely. How do you keep all the players motivated when there’s not something tangible to aim for?
I think a lot of that motivation has got to come from the players themselves. Each Premier League game is an occasion by itself watched by tens of millions all around the world. There’s a lot of people taking a big, big interest in what result you’re able to get. For me, I don’t think a player should need extra motivation to go into these last eight games and get as many points as they’re capable of getting to try and finish as high as possible in the table as they can. I’m fortunate here that I have a very good group of players. An experienced group of players, but also a very serious group of players and I’d be very surprised if I was to witness any failing of motivation or interest in these final eight games.
There are a lot of players out of contract. Do these last eight games represent a trial of some sort for them to try and earn a new contract?
I would hope not. I think that football clubs should make decisions on players over a body of work and a period of time. I think it’s a big mistake to leave the decision over whether a player’s had a good game or bad game in the last two or three games of a season. I remember many, many years ago being advised against that. To make your decisions about players halfway or two thirds of the way into a season. Not to leave it until the last minute. I think we know our players, we know what they can do. Unfortunately for the club, there are a number of them that find themselves, or we find ourselves, having to deal with players coming to the end of contracts, so a lot of negotiations have got to be done between the club and the players’ agents. That’s going on at this moment in time. Luckily, it certainly hasn’t had any effect on us in the last few games.
Has there been any movement on your contract or what’s going to happen next for you?
No. I’m in the same situation as the others. Basically, I think we’ve all got our own ideas about what our plans are, but we’re more than happy to wait a little bit longer before announce those.
Chelsea up next. They bounced back from a defeat against West Brom with a win in the Champions League. How do you assess that recovery and the start Thomas Tuchel has made in the Premier League?
Well I think their result in the Champions League was a very good one; a very important one. It’s never easy to play a team like Porto with all the experience they have. To win the game 2-0 and give themselves that platform going into the second leg, I think that’s fantastic and I’m pretty sure that Thomas and everyone around the club must be delighted. I regard the West Bromwich Albion game as one of those that can occur during the course of a season. I don’t expect it for one minute to have any major effect on what Chelsea are going to bring to the table tomorrow when they play us. Of course Thomas has started very well. I thought that Frank did a really good job himself as a matter of fact, producing a lot of young players for their club. Thomas has come in and with his experience he’s built certainly on the foundation that was there, and at the moment Chelsea are one of the teams that are always going to be vying at the top of the table. They’ve still got second place to play for, and if they’re going to get that second place they’re going to have to beat teams like ourselves on the run-in.
Michy Batshuayi seemed fired up by comments over the international break and responded with a goal the other day. Is it a disappointment that he can’t play against Chelsea?
Yeah, it’s always nice to have all your players available. We’ve been aware for a long time of course – since the moment we signed him – that there’s two matches he won’t be able to play and that’s the two against Chelsea. He’ll be disappointed I think because he’d have been hoping for another chance to get on and score again. But there’s lots of games after this one. We’ve got seven games left to play and if we’re going to do well in those seven matches, we’re going to need players available who feel themselves to be in good form and we’re going to need goalscorers. If Michy can fulfill that role for us we will be more than delighted.
How have the two of you been this week? Has you challenged him on the training ground?
No, I haven’t challenged him. To be honest, I haven’t spoken to him at all in any respect other than the conversations we have about football. But he’s come back alongside Christian Benteke. They’ve looked very happy in the three matches Belgium played with their advancement or continued advancement in qualifying. In training he’s been like he has been all the way through, so I’ve felt no need to talk to him specifically. Only of course to ask him questions that would have always come about. But a player gives an interview to a foreign journalist and it gets picked up over here because players sometimes say things to foreign journalists that they hope won’t get printed in England. But they need to learn that every time you open your mouth to a journalist whether it’s here in England or in Belgium, the chances are what you say is going to be quoted.
Is there anything you can take from that West Brom win? Areas you might be able to exploit that they did?
Well I thought West Brom played exceptionally well. I thought they were well worth their victory. I think it’s been accepted by all – I don’t think Chelsea had any qualms about accepting that on the day, West Brom were the better team and deserved the win. It just goes to show that we’re playing against a team that – however good they are – they’re not totally invincible, even though their record in the last 15 or 16 games would suggest they nearly are invincible because they’re not letting any goals in to speak of. The task doesn’t become any easier because West Brom beat them. What it does do of course is it puts a little bit of doubt perhaps in their mind that ‘we aren’t invincible – if we don’t reach our highest levels and the opponents have a good day we can lose the game’. I suppose that’s what gives us some hope. That if they are playing West Brom and then Porto it’s going to be a little harder maybe for them to play the third game in a week. If we can produce a performance, maybe we can do as well against them as West Brom did. But it will take a big effort. Because that was a good West Brom performance right the way through the team. Luckily they got their reward and Chelsea had to suffer the ignominy of a defeat that they hadn’t bargained for.
You said Frank Lampard was doing a good job and Tuchel has got off to a good start. What do you think are the main differences are in terms of style that we’ve seen from Chelsea under Tuchel?
Yeah, too difficult a question for me to answer. I think I’d have to be someone who spends his life really studying every Chelsea performance. I think they’ve got an awful lot of good players. I think that they were organised before Thomas came, and they’re certainly organised now so we’re still playing against a very, very organised team. I think that the confidence that so many good results in a row gives a team is an extra boost. I certainly don’t want to downplay in any way the work Thomas Tuchel has done because he’s obviously done an extremely good job. Saying that, I feel that I must also mention the fact that Frank Lampard wasn’t exactly doing disastrously himself. So when he came in, Thomas, I think there was a good platform to build on and an awful lot of good players to maybe get the best out of. To be fair to Frank, some of those players had only just come into the country and the team and it was always going to be the case to some extent that the longer they played together, as long as they’re playing for a good coach and someone who knows how to use their abilities, they were always going to get better.
Mason Mount scored again in the Champions League in the week. What do you make of his development? He’s become one of the players in the Premier League this season.
Absolutely. Fantastic. I can’t say anything about him that’s not already been said. I’m a big admirer, like anybody else. I think he’s exceptionally good in his position and I think he’s exceptionally knowledgeable as a player; wise as a player. So young. Luckily he’s been given a chance to show what he can do first at Derby County and now the next two seasons at Chelsea. He’s developed more and more every match, every Champions League game, every England game into someone that not only Chelsea can rely upon but also England can rely upon. So it’s nice for both of those two to have such a good player at this moment.
It’s just one defeat in your last six matches. But is there room for improvement anywhere? I know the shots on target has been a bit low – is that one area that needs to pick up?
It’s been low for four years! It’s not something that’s happened over the last few games. It’s been an unusual season, not least of all due to the Covid. We’ve had one or two very strange results which were totally unlike Crystal Palace, which perhaps we are prone to get. But I think as far as we’re concerned it’s a constant search for getting better, for becoming a better team, making certain that things we preach to the players and try to work on we get to see working on the field of play. I think it’s an advantage now that we have got ourselves a good distance from the relegation zone. Which hopefully will give the players that bit more confidence to really try and take a few more risks, if you like, in their play, not fearing that if it led to a goal it might cost us a game that will drag us closer to the relegation zone. That’s my hope. But we’ll have to see how that pans out.
What’s the latest injury news?
Yeah, good. The only person missing from the ones that have been available to us recently is Michy because he’s not allowed to play in this game. But James McCarthy has returned. Tyrick Mitchell has been back with us now for a couple of weeks and is fully fit and available to play. The ones that we don’t have are the two centre-backs who have been out now for a long period of time, that’s James Tomkins and Mamadou Sakho. James McArthur is still out unfortunately, and we’ve got at the moment Connor Wickham recovering from a very, very slight knock, but he’ll be back again soon as well and Nathan Ferguson. So some of the players we’re missing have been missing for a number of weeks and even months. It’s maybe just Connor who’s been with us recently and Nathaniel Clyne – he’s going to be joining in with us again next week, so even he’s making good progress. For the game tomorrow, certainly James McCarthy will be back and Tyrick Mitchell was there for the last couple of games and he will be with us tomorrow.
Have you ever come across Thomas Tuchel? I know you’ve managed everywhere, have you ever met him?
I met him once, spent some time with him at a meeting. A leaders’ meeting – a private occasion organised by a very important leaders’ group. I’ve been with that group for a period of time now, Thomas came and joined us a couple of years ago, I think, just before he joined Paris Saint-Germain. I had a chance to meet him there, speak with him and listen as well about his philosophy and he was telling us all about how he worked at Dortmund and the things that he thought were the most important – I found that very interesting. I shall look forward to meeting him again tomorrow, but I can’t claim to know him because that was the one occasions where we’ve had the chance to spend some time and talk to each other.
Have you spoken to Frank Lampard since he left Chelsea?
I did speak to him. I spoke to him at the time, but I haven’t spoken to him unfortunately since that time, but we’ve each got our own lives to lead, I suppose. I’m pretty certain Frank is busy, whatever he’s doing. I spoke to him at the time when he lost his job, but after that I’m afraid I haven’t. But I’m expecting him any day soon to pitch up again and get a new job, and that’s when I’ll call him again and congratulate him.
Prince Philip unfortunately passed away just before the press conference, I just wanted to give you the chance to pass on your condolences like many other managers and sports figures are doing.
Yes, of course I pass on my condolences. A sad day. A sad day for the Royal Family and the country. I can only wish the Royal Family everything I suppose that one can during this difficult period of time, especially with Prince Philip dying so close to his 100th birthday. It’s a really sad occasion.
