Will Hughes on Palace milestones, fan backing & winning habits

This interview originally appeared in the Crystal Palace v Southampton matchday programme. You can shop for programmes by clicking HERE.

It was the day after Crystal Palace’s resounding 3-1 win away at Brighton & Hove Albion, back in December, that we originally got the chance to sit down with Will Hughes.

Palace have won 10 of the 16 matches they have played in all competitions since that day – but such has been Hughes' consistent excellence this season, his words very much still ring true.

A week prior, in his 99th game for the Eagles, Hughes had recorded two assists in a 2-2 draw with Manchester City at Selhurst Park, winning plenty of plaudits for his dominant display against the likes of İlkay Gündoğan and Kevin de Bruyne.

It figures, then, that with Hughes’ milestone match arriving amidst arguably his best season so far at the club, ‘100 Palace appearances’ was the statistic we – media team hat firmly on – had at the forefront of our minds at the start of our conversation back then.

The obvious place to start: was Hughes himself aware? “Nope!” he laughs. “One of my mates texted me afterwards saying he didn’t realise it was 100 appearances… I was like: ‘Neither did I’!

"But it’s nice for me – a nice stat. Hopefully I’ve many more to come.”

A glimpse into the measure of the man. It’s not false modesty – Hughes simply prefers to talk about the good of the team rather than his own individual achievements.

It’s those same humble but hard-working qualities which have endeared him so much to the Palace faithful. Regardless, we persist in our line of questioning.

“On the whole, I’d say my time here’s gone quickly,” he looks back on his almost-four seasons with the club. “Obviously there can be elements of both. In certain spells, whenever you’re going through a bad patch as a team, it can feel like it’s going on forever!

“And likewise, when you’re playing well and winning, like the end of last season, the time just flew by. I’ve really enjoyed it. Everything about this club suits me.”

That ‘Huuughes’ noise – which nowadays accompanies his every touch of the ball – included?

“Yeah, I enjoy that – it’s something different!” he laughs again.

“I’ve not had that anywhere else in my career so far – so I take it as a compliment.”

A very South London compliment it is – and one increasingly heard, given Hughes’ influence of late at the heart of Palace’s engine room.

We put it to him that the words ‘cult hero’ have been thrown around in media headlines this season. “Hmm… I wouldn’t go that far!” comes the measured, but lightly mocking, reply.

It seems as good an opportunity as any to discuss his favourite Palace matches so far. His answer will be popular: “I’d probably say [December's 3-1 win] at Brighton!

"Since I’d been here, we hadn’t beaten them. They’re a good team, so going there and winning comfortably was a nice feeling.

“Then, [Manchester] United at home last season” – a 4-0 win, on a spectacular night back in May 2024 – “was really enjoyable. The fans were up for it. Under the lights, we were playing with confidence, playing such good football.

“To beat United 4-0 doesn’t happen every day, so that has to be up there…”

How did a pair of assists against the reigning Premier League champions, Manchester City, stack up? “We didn’t win, so it doesn’t count.”

Once again: focused on the collective, not the individual.

That reference to the win over United is not the first time Hughes’ admiration for the Selhurst Park support has come to the fore, the midfielder previously describing the club – in a rare foray onto social media – as ‘proper’.

Almost four years into his time at the club, with plenty of new faces in the dressing room, a new manager and new aspirations, would he still describe Palace that way? “Definitely – I just think there’s a uniqueness to it.

“The new lads coming in will know what kind of club this is beforehand. Whoever that may be, whether it’s someone already playing in the Premier League coming to us, or someone from abroad, people watch the Premier League week in, week out, so they’ll understand what Palace is about. They won’t need telling too much.

“There aren’t many stadiums like Selhurst left in the Premier League, which is sad because it creates such a unique atmosphere to play in.

"I remember playing away at Palace before I came here. It was always somewhere you dreaded coming as a player, trying to get a result, but at the same time, it was nice to play there because of the atmosphere. That’s what football is about.

“Thankfully, we’ve maintained that atmosphere at Palace, and it definitely helps us."

It is an atmosphere which goes hand-in-hand with the style of football Hughes and Palace have been playing of late.

Ahead of a recent pre-match press conference, Oliver Glasner took a moment to show the assembled journalists the quantity of each team’s high-intensity sprints in recent match-weeks. Palace, roared on by the Selhurst faithful, often sat top of the tree.

“I think the performances over the last few weeks" – we can now fairly extend that to 'months' – "have generally been a big improvement on where we were at the start of the season, and maybe results weren’t really reflecting how we were playing either,” Hughes reasons.

“You can’t always relate how much you run to winning games, but it certainly does help when you can outrun the opposition with the intensity that we play at. That’s what we were missing at the start of the season.

“Why that was, we don’t really know, but I think that’s been spoken about and obviously changed, and you can see the benefits from it with the results and performances. I think that’s one of our big advantages as a team, as a squad.

"It’s just been driven into us as a team. It comes from within. It should be a given that you know you’re an intense team, and you run that much.

"When all 10 outfield players are doing that, it gives you a good base to go and get good results and performances, and that’s what you’ve seen over the last few weeks.

“When you’ve got that base of running hard, running with intensity, winning your duels, that does give you a base to win games. Then, along with that, is the quality we have here.

“We’ve played a lot of top teams in the division and come away with quite a few points, so we know that we just have to be consistent with it, and we’ll start climbing the table.”

With 11 matches – at least – left in Palace's season to be played over the next two months, Hughes and his fellow midfielders will have plenty of ground to cover.

“It’s a really strong part of our squad, the midfield, especially for two positions,” he notes. “I think you have to learn to adapt to your partner to a point, but not too much.

“You’ve still got to play your own game and bring the benefits, the skills you have as a player – but we all complement each other so well. I think the gaffer has a big headache when we are all fit.

“We’ve five or six players who can start with each other and we all bring something different, so I think that’s a positive thing: healthy competition.

“Every game we’ve got the potential of winning, but every game is difficult in its own way. People might expect us to win certain games, but the Premier League is not that easy, as we all know.

“As with every year and every season, it’s topsy-turvy in this league. You’re going to have good moments, bad moments, good spells and bad spells, so it’s just important that you don’t get too down or too high, and vice versa.

"With every game in the Premier League, we’ll have to be ready.”

You can be certain Will Hughes will be.