Frank de Boer must be patient to lead local club Crystal Palace back to its roots

Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish has told new manager Frank de Boer that his main brief is “to reduce the anxiety” for both he and the fans at a club who are desperate to truly establish themselves as a Premier League mainstay.

It is true that this was an appointment that Parish was not expecting to make, with Sam Allardyce resigning from his position as manager just six months into a 24-month deal.

He has turned to a man who realigned the winning culture of home club Ajax from the dugout, and is hoping the Dutchman can repeat the trick.

There are similarities in the positions that de Boer and Crystal Palace find themselves in; just over 12 months ago the south Londoners took Manchester United to extra-time in the FA Cup Final, whilst De Boer landed the Inter Milan job which promised to catapult him into the managerial elite.

The 2016/17 season did not go to plan for either party, with Allardyce having to perform his trademark relegation fire-fighting heroics, whilst De Boer lasted just 14 games at the San Siro, of which he lost seven.

Palace need De Boer to steer them away from the Premier League trapdoor for good, and he will try to use the club to prove that the rebuilding job he did at Ajax was no fluke.

He complained that he was not afforded the time he needed at Inter, and the three-year contract he has signed at Selhurst Park is a sign that both club and manager are in this for the long-run, at least in Premier League terms.

The blueprint for De Boer’s tenure is firmly built around the Ajax model, with the manager’s vision of a team who “try and play technical football and dominate.” This certainly sounds attractive on paper, but will be hard to implement in a league where six or seven teams can boast finances that dwarf the rest.

At Ajax he was able to build a winning team around a group of young academy graduates and, as such, De Boer has played a crucial part in the careers of Toby Alderweireld, Christian Eriksen and Daley Blind, amongst others.

There is the hope that he can bring through a new core generation from south London. The slogan for Crystal Palace’s shirt release was “South London is ours” and the strip itself carries the names of all five boroughs which make up the club's catchment area. They may have appointed a foreign manager for the first time since 1998, but they are looking to him to return a local club to its roots.

When De Boer took over at Ajax in 2010 they had not won the Eredivisie since 2003/04, and he won it in four consecutive seasons with a core of precociously talented players to whom he had placed his trust.

Transfer business during his tenure was minimal, with a focus on development rather than recruitment to fit into a style of dominant and attractive football.

De Boer referenced Palace’s recent spending, and seems heartened by the prospect of to “do something well with that money,” although he struggled to gel team of expensive recruits at Inter last year.

Joel Veltman is one of the early names linked with a move to Selhurst Park, a player that was given his debut at Ajax by De Boer in 2012. It therefore seems that the new manager may be given some autonomy over the club’s transfer dealings.

The issue at Crystal Palace is whether de Boer will have the raw materials to cultivate this culture of youthful enthusiasm. Jonny Williams, once the next great hope at Selhurst Park, has just signed a new two-year contract, but is now 23 and spent last season on loan at Ipswich Town, mainly on the treatment table.

Hiram Boateng and Sullay Kaikai are both highly thought of and have impressed in loan spells in the EFL, yet have just one substitute Premier League appearance apiece at 21-years of age.

Years of youthful abandonment have left de Boer with little academy talent with first-team experience, and he will not be able to summon the spectacular without the appropriate tools.

Kyle De Silva and Kwesi Appiah have both been touted in recent years to be the next in the supply line that produced Victor Moses, Nathaniel Clyne and Wilfried Zaha, but they now turn out for FC Eindhoven and AFC Wimbledon in a familiar tale of lost promise.

Whilst Steve Parish and Crystal Palace fans may crave an immediate impact from their new manager, patience may well be required to allow De Boer to effectively carry out the role he was hired to do.

The attacking talent currently at the club runs deep, with Zaha and Benteke players that most teams in Europe would love to boast. Thankfully De Boer seems to note that the dominance he will try to implement at Palace will differ to the free-flowing Ajax.

“You can be dominant without the ball by trying to move the opposition where you want them to go,” he noted.

It seems likely then that we can expect a high-press from his team, looking to win the ball in advanced areas where his attacking threats can be at their most potent, a tactic that paid dividends for Claudio Ranieri and Leicester not so long ago.

There seems little doubt that de Boer will be encouraged to look to the youth to help Crystal Palace rediscover its London identity, but all parties must remember that results, rather than romance, will eventually dictate the success of this appointment.