Tony Popovic waves off links to Crystal Palace gig

Australia coach Tony Popovic has waved off links to the Crystal Palace job as "speculation", and while providing no assurances he'll remain beyond his expiring contract, confirmed that talks with Football Australia have commenced around an extension.

Multiple reports emerged on Sunday that Palace were set to sack manager Pierre Sage after 16 games at Selhurst Park, after a 3-1 defeat to Liverpool left the club sitting bottom of the Premier League heading into the international break. Familiar Premier League coaches such as Thomas Frank, Sean Dyche, and Vitor Pereira have all been reportedly tapped as potential successors. The Athletic, however, also named former Palace defender and current Australia coach Tony Popovic as a potential appointment.

Popovic, 53, spent five years at Palace in the early 2000s, including their 2004-05 Premier League campaign, and later spent a year there as an assistant to Dougie Freedman after retiring and moving into coaching. He signed a short-term contract extension on the eve of the FIFA World Cup to lead Australia into an Asian Cup scheduled for January in Saudi Arabia and, while that tournament has now been postponed, his contract is still set to end in March -- throwing his future into question.

Football Australia's preference is to sign the coach to a new deal, be it another short-term contract through to the rescheduled Asian Cup or through the 2030 FIFA World Cup cycle. The federation is also eager to have clarity on the situation by the end of the year, lest they both lose Popovic and miss out on potential replacements such as Kevin Muscat, who is out of contract following the end of Shanghai Port's season.

"I wasn't aware of any of that until [the Socceroos media team] just showed me," Popovic said when the Palace reports were put to him. "It's speculation. That happens in coaching for different reasons. At the moment, there's speculation about the Crystal Palace job. I just saw my name's been mentioned.

"There is a contract end [with Football Australia], so there's obviously a deadline. It's not one party; it's always two parties, and there's dialogue [with Football Australia] at the moment, which has started. If the Asian Cup wasn't postponed, would that have changed and started a bit later? I'm not sure. But I think both parties are comfortable with the situation, and we've got no issues with how this is progressing.

"Now the situation has changed. Maybe there's more urgency about getting an agreement in place, if there is one, and we're working through that now. But you know, we're working through that in a positive way, and there are no issues with that."

Popovic was speaking from Doha ahead of the Socceroos' November fixtures against Qatar and Jordan, the first time he has addressed media since the Asian Cup's postponement. And he signalled that while his situation may now be up in the air, it wouldn't change his mindset in the job, with focus now turning to blooding players and experimentation.

"We'll see how that goes. What's clear is, I love the job; nothing's changed in that aspect," said Popovic. "Nothing's changed in the way I work. It's an honour and privilege to do this. I know I don't own this job. The Socceroos are much bigger than Tony Popovic.

"The way I view it is, it's very similar to the World Cup situation. We qualified automatically for the World Cup. There were 12 months before the World Cup. I agreed to a contract [extension] literally a week before the World Cup started. That didn't affect any planning. That didn't affect planning for the future. I was not thinking about my tenure ending after the World Cup. I just focused on the future and preparing the team, how it can get better and better over the short term, medium, and long term."

Popovic's 24-player squad for the November window -- Patrick Yazbek has been forced to withdraw due to injury -- is in the process of assembling in Doha, with the fixtures against Qatar and Jordan that were supposed to prepare them for the Asian Cup still preceding despite that tournament's cancellation.

Players' union chief Beau Busch has said that players have "overwhelmingly" signalled a desire not to travel to Amman to face Jordan, citing security risks, preferring instead for the match to be rescheduled or relocated. That game, however, is still scheduled, with Football Australia chief Martin Kugeler saying the federation "will continue to assess the security environment and provide players and staff with timely, comprehensive updates, including relevant safety advice and risk assessments."

Signalling that the make-up of the squad had shifted post-Asian Cup postponement, and that players such as Jackson Irvine and Paul Izzo were unavailable due to newfound fatherhood status, Popovic said he wasn't aware of any players in the squad who would opt out of travelling to Amman. The coach said that only one player declined a call-up, Alex Robertson, for personal reasons, but that anyone who opted out wouldn't have their future selection chances impacted by the decision.

"No, moving forward, if players are available for selection moving forward in any camps, any decisions made [on travelling to Jordan] will not affect their possibility or availability for selection," he said. "That's clear. They all understand that."