I am doing no pre match whatsoever, I am getting there not so long before kick off, watching the game, and then making my way back. The pre match wouldn't feel right, I wouldn't get excited, only nervous.
No real idea how this will play out. But, Palace had no real nerves against Brighton away because it was taken away from them with an outrageous pre-match scandal where a lot of what we felt was anger which made us play so much better.
Without a 'crap' incident we could be that same nervous outfit with not much going for it. However, we have dropped Murray through injury and that could be our blessing in disguise as I said before, and Wilbraham coming in to replace him has done wonders. The second half of the first leg and all of the second he played and with him on the pitch we looked so much more threatening, just using him as an anchor. He has a decent touch, is good in the air, decent short passer and he tries his heart out despite being a little useless at everything else. He is a huge asset as a target man whereas Murray never was a proper one really.
Would be redic to let me have a go at Murray like that and let it sit there, he has generally been prolific for us this season. He was though, according to rumours, carrying some sort of niggle that didn't have him at his best for the last 10 games before he went down recently for his much harsher knee injury. Holloway hadn't the bollocks to drop our 30 goal a season man despite him being the most outrageous passenger in games you have ever seen. It was a shock to watch, and a shame, he should not have been playing. I think it was 10 matches with 1 penalty to his name, and there were only muted cries of fans angry he was still playing because the majority could not see past what he had already done for us this season rather than his prolonged short term output, which was dreadful. We signed him up on a big contract during his terrible run and I have no idea why, unless they were confident he could shake off whatever it was limiting him so profoundly.
I think with Murray out of the picture Holloway is secretly so much more confident of victory even though he would never admit it.
We will be at our biggest threat from counter attacks and from Zaha/Bolasie getting the ball on the wings and running at the full backs. Both have a decent cross, both are very good flair players, it could be interesting. I worry about our lack of numbers in the box though when we do go forward. Sometimes it is just Wilbraham alone and even sometimes he is not in the box as he has claimed the ball from deep and dished it out wide, leaving our wingers with no one to aim for.
We probably won't even start Bolasie and play Williams on the right hand side even though he strays in and we effectively play with nothing down one of the sides, we should in essence only pick one out of him and Garvan who sits in behind Wilbraham and have Bolasie start but Holloway persists with what he is doing so fair play to him. I think it is a little lightweight to play both Williams and Garvan myself even though when the latter is on form he can win the game for you with one wonderful ball after being out of the game for so long, and with Williams he could also slip that ball in and generally cause a big nuisance. It's just that I think one of them should be dropped for Bolasie so we have two potent wing threats rather than one, but he is playing the two little men and they may do a job.
There have been cries that Dikagcoi should be dropped as his performances were waning for Bolasie/Garvan/Williams all to start, but I think Holloway finds a safety in the idea that with him and Jedinak on he has two enforcers. Both have been pretty terrible within our last 10 games, aside from the last one, they were not the brick wall of before and can't exactly put my finger on why. People say Dikagcoi is a little unfit and no one would dare say it but I thought that Jedinak had lost his head mentally when the pressure of us getting automatically promoted hit, he therefore let his performances drop and we are seeing what he was like before any of us thought he was any good (he turned it on for us after three games into the season). Their last game though was a breath of fresh air and they hassled Brighton well and distorted play as much as they could and there was promise there.
This game will be won on if our two centre backs aren't found out, namely Gabidon, who nearly got caught napping for Brighton's best chance at the Amex, and generally is way too lackadaisical. He is the possible calamity, but saying that Delaney has been known for one or two jokes this season. The two wing backs for us were man of the matches in our last game and I hope they stay very alert.
I think Watford have amazing talent across the board and it will be a matter of us trying to deflate them and get on top. They have potent goal threats in Abdi, Vydra and Deeney and generally play in a way that could sweep us under the carpet very quickly. Just have to hope Palace manage to get the momentum early and look to capitalise, despite not having an out and out scorer in our ranks, with Zaha our highest goalscorer on 8.
Will be interesting to see if Zaha can step up for us, again, as a beautiful send off present.
Good luck to Watford, Luther and Dungbeetle namely on here, should be a good spectacle regardless of the result.
And too for the rest of you who have made this thread a great read with your insights into your own teams and the Championship generally throughout the season.
Cliffs:
I talk too much about Palace
I thank all of you for your great input into this thread all season!COME ON YOU PALACE!
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