DE BOER, the great Frank de Boer, really did believe the world revolved around him.
His disastrous spell at Selhurst Park is over, brought to a swift and decisive end by Parish this morning.
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Yesterday they were beaten again, this time by Burnley.
It is their fourth successive game in the Premier League.
De Boer, whatever his pedigree as a footballer, had to go.
He promised Parish the club would evolve under his leadership, moving away from gritty south London upstarts to a playing style that would be easy on the eye.
Parish, with five years’ experience of wheeling and dealing and hiring and firing, knows how unforgiving the Premier League is.
De Boer wanted to play the Ajax way, to rely on the principles established by the legendary figures of Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff.
It meant playing 3-4-3 ... and led to three successive Premier League defeats.
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Even when he trialled the system over the summer - losing three successive training ground games to Palace’s under-23 side - he stuck with it.
De Boer, 47, has been a disaster for Palace.
They will have to pick up the pieces now, putting these traumatised players back together after the Dutch coach was fired in a meeting with Parish today.
He had to go, he really did.
Parish accepts he made a mistake appointing the Dutchman, taking his eye off the ball when they sifted through a shortlist of 37 candidates to succeed Sam Allardyce.
Palace’s chairman tired of the process, the endless hours interviewing potential managers as they searched for the right man.
It has just started all over again.
The players, secretly, will be relieved that De Boer has already been moved on.
He has shattered the confidence of some honest Palace players - Martin Kelly and Joel Ward among them - because of his failure to show any empathy.
He did not think there was anything wrong with telling Kelly, who began his career with Liverpool, that he was not good enough to play for Palace.
After sending him to train with the Palace Under-23 side, Kelly was suddenly brought back into the first team squad for the 1-0 defeat at Liverpool.
When Joel Ward was overlooked for selection in a training ground 11 v 11, the popular right back was told to watch the game to learn how to play wing back.
When he did play there for the first time, just days after being told he was up for sale, Ward was all over the shop against Huddersfield on the opening weekend.
Palace, struggling to adapt to De Boer’s methods, were beaten 3-0.
The Dutchman was marked out early on by the Palace players when he started showing off the skills that earned him 112 caps for Holland during a glorious career.
De Boer would pick balls out of the sky, swivel on the spot and then ping one into the top corner in front of the Palace squad.
It was unnecessary and smacked of arrogance.
His playing days finished 11 years ago, but he could not resists showing off in front of his new players.
It had shades of Glenn Hoddle showing David Beckham how to strike a football when he was head coach of the England side.
It filtered back to the boardroom, with De Boer’s unusual requests and methods causing as much concern as results on the pitch.
After the latest defeat, a woeful performance against Swansea on Saturday, Parish did not speak to the manager after the game for the first time in recent memory.
They had met earlier in the week, with Parish making it crystal clear that he would be fired unless results and performances improved.
De Boer’s failure to have any basic organisational skills, even down to the players who would be eligible to play in last week’s Carabao Cup tie against Ipswich, soured relations.
When he decided to play Timothy Fosu-Mensah, 19, and Jairo Reidewald, 20, in the centre of defence, De Boer was warned that they would not be physically equipped in the Premier League.
De Boer thought he knew best and played them anyway.
Palace have lost their opening four games, left with 34 games to fight, scrap and battle their way to 40 points.
For that reason, De Boer has paid for it.
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