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Finally, Nathaniel Clyne began to get irritated with all the questions. How is the wound? How much time is left? When are you coming back I knew that people had good intentions. But when you try to fight your way back, the last thing you want or need is pity. What you need, above all, is time and space.
Time was not an issue. As he watched most of Liverpool’s 2019-20 title-winning season from the bench, recovering from an ACL injury, Clyne had plenty of time to collect his thoughts. “I think I checked everything on Netflix,” he recalls. “Just duvet days, relaxing at home watching movies and documentaries.”
Deep down, he also realized that his fifth season at Liverpool would be his last. As his teammates worked their way to a first league title in 30 years, Clyne remained somewhat peripheral, tangential, on the edge of things. Somewhere along the line, between all the injuries and restarts, Jürgen Klopp’s team had moved on from the right-back in which so much hope and promise had been invested when he signed from Southampton in 2015.
Similarly, Clyne had long since moved from Liverpool. It was time for a change. Time to go home. “There were a few options on the table,” he said. “But none of them appealed as much as Crystal Palace.”
And so he returned home, back to the club where it all began as a frail eight-year-old with abundant talent and a thirst for improvement. When he left Selhurst Park in 2012, they were a championship team in trouble. “Look at Palace now,” he enthuses. “An established Premier League team. We really have a foothold in the league. “
This is by far the most successful era in the Palace’s history: an eighth consecutive season in the top flight, a team packed with international stars. And yet despite all this, they have never lost their hometown feel: a club firmly rooted in their locality and community, “south London and proud,” according to banners hung from seats in the absence of fans. that fill them.
That’s why so many alumni end up coming back, from Clyne to Wilfried Zaha, athletic director Dougie Freedman, assistant manager Ray Lewington, current manager, a Croydon kid and former Palace trainee named Roy Hodgson. “It’s exciting to be back,” says Clyne, whose attachment to south London extends to a Stockwell tube station tattoo on his arm. “It just feels like home.”
The area where Clyne grew up has changed radically in the years since his childhood. The Brixton estate where he lived now overlooks a fancy restaurant and hot yoga studio. But despite everything, he has maintained the same friends, he has maintained the same connections, he has maintained the same hunger. He went back to his old school a few years ago to pass out kits and do some training. And, happily, some things have not changed.
“As for the player, it’s just Wilf,” Clyne replies when asked who has been with the club since his first spell. “But there are a lot of staff behind the scenes: in the kitchen, security, stadium staff, some faces I remember. I moved back to London, I have a nice house and I settled in very well. “
Also on the court, the placement process has been quick. Despite not playing a competitive game for nearly 18 months since arriving at the Palace, Clyne has wedged himself directly into Hodgson’s first-choice XI, playing seven games in a row before getting a well-deserved break against West Ham in the middle of the week. That, he suspects, was a decision made with an eye on Palace’s assignment at lunchtime on Saturday: a home game against Liverpool.
How do you feel about what Liverpool accomplished while you were there, European champions and then the Premier League, and yet largely without it? “Yeah, I missed that,” he says regretfully. “However, it only makes you hungrier. Seeing that the team was successful pushed me to improve and come back as quickly as possible. All credit to Liverpool for what they accomplished, and I’m glad I was a part of that. “
What did Klopp teach you? “Just to keep fighting. You can see that he is hungry for players to play 100%. That is what he demands of his players: that they give everything on the field. That’s what I’ve learned from him: play 100% and play with confidence too.
Palace has certainly been playing with more confidence this season – a team with all the usual Hodgson solidity but with some added flair, and Zaha’s goals have put them 12th on the table.
“He’s definitely gotten better,” Clyne says of the forward he first saw when he was 15 at the Palace academy. “Everyone knows he had the skills. It was about adding the final product, which I think you have now. It doesn’t surprise me that there is interest from the big clubs. That is what happens when you are at the top of your game. He’s becoming the complete player. “
As for Clyne himself, on a short-term contract, there are always certain lingering question marks about any player returning from a long-term injury. But so far this season, he can hardly have done more to address them.
“When you get to 50-50 and you feel good, that’s the main thing,” he explains. “Know that you are strong and that you will not hurt yourself. I feel it right now. I feel like I’m back in my prime and I’m enjoying it. “
One of Palace’s great talents has finally returned home. Now, you feel like this is where the hard work really begins.
