Fifteenth in the Premier League last season, Crystal Palace took the gamble of enlisting Pierre Sage as their new coach. The former Lens coach chose to only stay one year in Artois before giving in to the English sirens. But for the moment, Sage’s British adventure is not going very well. Seventeenth in the rankings, the Eagles are struggling to take off and the 47-year-old French technician has already annoyed his president. For Jérôme Rothen, Sage pays for a bad attitude.
“He said everything and its opposite last season. (…) In his attitude, he saw himself as too beautiful. Congratulations for the victory in the Coupe de France with Lens. (…) What’s funny today is that he criticizes Crystal Palace that recruitment is not up to what he expected, but on the other hand in Lens, it didn’t bother him to say nothing about recruitment because he hadn’t participated in it. (…) We gave him players, he made this mayonnaise very well internally. But since we had to pull the cover for him, because for me it’s a false modesty, he said: “the year in Lens, magnificent.” And there, a big English club comes to pick him up. That’s when he saw himself looking too good. If you are sure of your strength, you do things differently with your leaders in Lens and you would have agreed to play the Champions League with Lens. But given that he lacked experience and knowledge of high-level football, the first club made him an offer and there they explained to us that he could not refuse Crystal Palace. But Crystal Palace, last year, they finished 15th or 16th. (…) What we see is that in the first 12 matches, he has won three and is taking blow after blow against teams playing in the second half of the table. For the moment, there is no reaction from the group because you are missing a lot of things”he declared on the microphone of RMC.
