Former Crystal Palace defender Damien Delaney has revealed that he was sure Frank de Boer was not going to last at the club and admits that he had no relationship with the Dutchman.

Delaney joined Crystal Palace from Ipswich Town and went on to earn promotion to the Premier League with the Eagles and also played in an FA Cup final against Manchester United in 193 appearances for the club.  

 



However, his career at Crystal Palace looked over in 2017 when De Boer ousted him from the first-team squad and he was training with the Under-23 team.

Delaney admits that he only had a few conversations with the Dutchman and did not agree with him before he was banished from first-team affairs.
 


He only trained for a couple of weeks in pre-season with De Boer and conceded that he had no relationship with the former Crystal Palace manager.



However, the former defender claimed that he did not believe his time at Crystal Palace was over as he was sure De Boer was not going to be at Selhurst Park for too long.

“I was down at the other training ground with the kids, not even in the building”, Delaney told The Athletic.
 

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“Me and him had differences of opinion on things. I made my opinions known and that was the end of me — which was fine.

“The amount of times I’ve heard: ‘How is De Boer supposed to play football with someone like Damien Delaney?’. I wasn’t even training with the first team!

“I was training with the youth team. I had two weeks training under Frank and that was the end of me and him.

“I didn’t play for him or train for him. I had no relationship with the guy. To put his failure at Palace on me is staggering.

“He had his Timothy Fosu-Mensahs, Jairo Riedewalds etc. If I played in his first four [matches] and we lost all four, I might take some responsibility but I wasn’t even allowed in the stadium to watch the games.

“I was training with the under-18s and under-23s after the Asia Trophy tournament in Hong Kong.

“It was two or three weeks of pre-season then that was the end of me and him.”

De Boer only lasted ten weeks and four Premier League games as Crystal Palace manager, with the Eagles then opting to pull the trigger and end their Dutch experiment.

Asked if he felt that he was finished at Crystal Palace, the former defender said: “No, I was fully sure that he wouldn’t last.”