Dan Cook praises Hughes on first Palace start

Dan Cook has heaped a lot of praise on Will Hughes following his first start for Crystal Palace on the HLTCO podcast.

Crystal Palace managed to get back to winning ways and also picked up their first three points since James McArthur and Joachim Andersen have been out injured as they put in a dominant display at the weekend, with Conor Gallagher netting a stunning brace.

Could Crystal Palace be relegated?

Yes!

No!

Will Hughes, who was signed in the summer, was handed his first start of the season against Everton by Patrick Vieira with both his tireless display allowing Gallagher to thrive in the final third, as he pressured the ball 17 times and also progressed the ball from deep, racking up 118 yards (FBRef), so it may be difficult for Vieira to drop him in the near future.

Cook was very happy with what he saw from Hughes on Sunday.

“Being able to retain possession and have a ball-playing, good, technical footballer in Will Hughes next to Conor Gallagher in the midfield was always going to be a better form of defence, in many ways.

“I think if you look at Will Hughes’ close control, you look at his ability to advance the play, his reading of situations, it was quite clear from the off yesterday that we really did benefit from having his technical nous in the middle of the park.

“I’m not suggesting we wouldn’t have won it if Luka Milivojevic had started, of course, it’s impossible to say for sure – but I certainly felt a great deal happier having Will Hughes at the base of that midfield.”

TIF Thoughts on Hughes…

It has been an extremely slow start for Hughes and his career at Palace, to the point where he may well have thought it was a mistake joining the Eagles, having only been handed 10 minutes throughout the opening 13 league games for the club.

Now though, having been handed a chance to impress due to injuries, he’s definitely taken his opportunity with both hands and may count himself hard done by if he loses his place soon, especially as the Eagles won with him in the side but had struggled to do that while he was warming the bench.

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