Simon Jordan believes Crystal Palace should be setting their sights far higher than simply looking to avoid relegation – but has stressed fans should be ‘careful what they wish for’ amid growing uncertainty over Roy Hodgson’s future.
The Eagles produced the ultimate smash-and-grab victory at Brighton on Monday night thanks to Christian Benteke’s last-gasp strike in a 2-1 win at the Amex, despite only registering two shots on target in the entire contest.
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Speaking ahead of the match, manager Hodgson told supporters questioning the ambition of the club’s owner to be ‘careful’, with the general consensus among the Palace faithful that the club should be operating at a higher level than they currently are.
Hodgson’s side currently lie 13th in the top flight and 10 points clear of the drop zone, and look poised to secure their Premier League status for another season.
And while Jordan agrees with the sentiments of the veteran boss, he does believe Palace have a squad of players – 14 of whom are out of contract at the end of the season – which should be looking up the table instead of down it.
“Every space you go up the Premier League is worth £2.5million in merit payments,” the former Palace owner told talkSPORT. “Finish bottom of the league, extra revenue at the end of the season.
“Finish top of the league and you get £40-50m extra as a result of your ladder payments. So if you go up four/five places and into that top ten for instance, Palace will get another £12m.
“To do that they’re probably going to have to spend £30m, 40m, 50m… so it depends where you are positioning your football club.
“Your position is to say if it’s ‘amongst the elite in the division’, or are you patronising to say it’s ‘in the division’.
“Roy has a point, but don’t ignore the fact that irrespective of big transfer fees last summer – which by the way most clubs did not spend besides Chelsea – Palace have a squad of players that should be operating at a level that should be away from relegation.”
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On the quality in Palace’s squad, Jordan added: “I know Benteke sometimes couldn’t hit a cow’s backside with a banjo, but they paid £35m for him!
“They’ve got Andros Townsend, they’ve got Jordan Ayew, they’ve got Wilfried Zaha, they’ve bought the boy [Ebere] Eze from QPR for £20m.
“They’ve got a centre half in Mamadou Sakho that they paid £26m for. They’ve got wing-backs in Jeffrey Schlupp they paid £17m for, Patrick van Aanholt was another £15m. They’ve got a very decent goalkeeping roster.
“So why would Palace think that occupying the spaces around the bottom six of the division is something they should be happy with?”
The 53-year-old stressed he was not criticising the club’s current ownership, but ultimately believes Palace’s long-term ambitions are dependent on the investment that is made in the squad.
“I don’t want to rail in on Palace as it’s my old club and it’s an easy target for people to lift headlines from and saying I’m criticising the current owners – I’m not doing that all,” Jordan explained.
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“It’s a really difficult balance to strike, because they tried to have a go a few years ago and got close to the top ten.
“The American owners are the ones who are funding this, and they’ve been involved in relegation challenges during every season since then.
“At the end of the season they’ve pulled away because they’ve had really good guys in there like [Sam] Allardyce and [Tony] Pulis originally, [Alan] Pardew at one point and obviously Roy.
“But none of those appointments, with all due respect to them, are upward looking appointments; they’re stability based, ‘stay in the division whatever it takes’.
“You have to be careful what you wish for, because if you go for it – [Aston] Villa spent £100m last year, nearly got it wrong and now they’re doing well – it doesn’t always work.”
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