So Dougie WHY BOLTON?

Immediately prior to our last match Dougie freedman went to odds on favourite for the Bolton Wanderers job. Yesterday afternoon prior to our match against Barnsley Dougie took the job.

Off the back of his first managerial job in football where he cut his teeth in management, an untested rookie with a previously unquestioned legendary status at Crystal Palace walked out on Palace for Bolton. Over ninety games a win ratio of 35.5% why Bolton and does this record and experience really qualify him to work for a club that see themselves through their own eyes as bigger than Palace? Without any legendary status behind him to fall back on and after trumpeting advice to the likes of Wilfried Zaha to stick with the club until the end of the season and try and achieve something and not move before he is ready the question that sticks in my throat is should he not try taking his own advice?

After one managerial job and ninety games like Zaha and Williams as players Freedman has a lot to learn as a manager and with a win ratio of 35.5% a very good Carling Cup run last season and a six match unbeaten run that won Septembers manager of the month award masks a record of one win in 35 games. Between our semi final defeat and first victory this season against Sheffield Wednesday our only victory in the League was Barnsley at home. The start of the season yielded no points from the first three games and indeed had we lost to Charlton he could have been sacked. Yet rightly our board stuck with him on more than one occasion so to go now off the back of six good results smacks of opportunism on Freedman’s part and could be a decision that gets found out.

Clubs that do not appreciate their history often struggle with their identity but Palace does not have this problem. We understand our history and we are fair minded on average players and love our heroes. Dougie was a hero and we all should appreciate the vital part in our history Freedman has played, be it his 11 minute hat-trick against Grimsby in 1996, his club saving goal against Stockport in 2001 or his equally crucial role in Paul Hart’s management team at Hillsbrough in 2010. Yet the reality is now Freedman can only be part of our history and a very divisive figure in that history! His present day decision to walk out for Bolton because he sees them as better suited to serve his ambition to manage in the Premier League is deeply conflicting and divisive on supporters’ emotions towards him. Personally I love Dougie for what he has done for our club but I now feel confused and upset as though an eighteen year relationship has ended suddenly with no chance of being reconciled.

Whatever Freedman’s place in Crystal Palace history his recent conduct smacks of lies and hypocrisy. Telling Zaha to stay and develop at the club before walking away himself without proving himself as a manager first, and stating publicly in the press he does not leave ‘jobs half done’ before walking out for reasons that must be financial when he is close to achievement with Palace, makes the situation for supporters difficult to understand.

Freedman is a coach with a lot of potential yet if it goes wrong for him at Bolton he may have no fallback position because he has split Palace fans emotions in possibly a worse way then Steve Bruce. I stated in my very first Blog post in October 2011 Dougie Freedman was like a guardian of the Palace, a cult hero if you like which makes Freedman’s decision to leave when he was so close to something with apparent lack of care for the supporters given his status at the club confusing, hard to fathom, raw, and painful.

Dougie Freedman managed Crystal Palace from January 2011 – October 2012: 90 matches 32 wins 32 losses 26 draws. Win percentage 35.5%