Think he's done a decent job but there'd only been four league games played by that point and they were only 3 points off safety. It's taken them until last week to pull away from the bottom three. Bournemouth were in exactly the same position as Palace after four games but put a run together after Xmas that meant they were well out danger long before Palace. Leicester were in a similary perilous situation at one point and Puel dug them out of it straight away.
I think Palace have actually played quite well and been unlucky in some games and they also had terrible injury problems, but they have a better squad at their disposal than some of the teams around them. I'd say Wagner keeping that Huddersfield side above them for virtually all of the season and still having a chance of safety probably outshines what Hodgson has done. For me though, if you want a non top 6 elite option, you'd have to go for Dyche given he's finished best of the rest and with a weaker squad than many. Would be absurd to award it to anyone other than Pep though tbh. He's had a lot of cash at his disposal but the team he's built and the way we've played transcends all of that.