Crystal Palace FC Thread + Premiership Palaver

[pleno1]

You'd be surprised what we can get out of them Pleno. I am not trying to come across as blissfully defensive, I have seen our output and its been pretty good against the three teams we have already played, and I am hopefuly we are going to give a good account of ourselves.

i saw one game and you were not good at all. if lennon had been swapped for bale it could have been 5-0 in the first half.

[Ant040689]

I don't doubt it Ant in the short term, but you're going to end up suffering the cumulative impact of the Premer League imo with this squad.  There are going to be some really tough months full of back to back defeats and Holloway will be right up against it to keep the morale up.

How is Campana looking so far? - he was the one signing which I thought looked pretty exciting.
  

He looks unfit. Clearly comfortable on the ball and a great silky passer, decent free kick on him too, but we haven't seen him anywhere near his best yet and the same applies ont hat front to Chamakh who is pretty unfit.

I think in terms of dealing with the dry spells, he dealt with the one in the championship very well. Always getting enough points to stay in the race for the top 2, only until the death really, and basically never having too much of a sweat going on that we would be out of the playoffs. So fair play that we were crap results wise in 2013 but you could just say we were always doing enough to keep us in the mix and when we had to turn it on we did against two very good sides. I think on both occasions it can be said Holloway got the upper hand on some tactical decisions.

I think Holloway is primed for this campaign, in the same way he was primed for the play offs by winning 2 semi finals in 3 years before winning his third in 4 with us, and then using his annoying experience of losing to WHUFC in the play off final to help beat Watford this time around. Him winning with Blackpool that way too obviously helped and this experience was key I thought. Using that theory, I think what he experienced with Blackpool will serve us hugely in our survival bid.

He ran it very close with them, and I think he will use that to guide us to safety with a bit more ease than it going to the last day anyway. That is my opinion, I think we thrive from being the underdogs anyway, and people constantly assuming we are going to falter despite showing good displays on the pitch is a recipe for us to be underestimated and hopefully that will help us.

It also helps that this season I could actually see all the promoted sides staying up at the expense of WBA, Stoke and Sunderland/Newcastle. Or at the least there being an almighty battle at the bottom. I doubt it will be clear cut.

[Ant040689]

You'd be surprised what we can get out of them Pleno. I am not trying to come across as blissfully defensive, I have seen our output and its been pretty good against the three teams we have already played, and I am hopefuly we are going to give a good account of ourselves.

i saw one game and you were not good at all. if lennon had been swapped for bale it could have been 5-0 in the first half.

tbf, Parr is our no.1 left back and he is only coming back to fitness from injury. You didn't see Tottenham get much success down the left hand side as our first choice RB was doing very well.

[luther101]

Good God - that 'end of the transfer window' was like some down off-beat reality show for you lot down at Selhurst, Ant.

I much prefer the Pozzo method     .....       beginning of July, they tell the coach who's che's getting - and Zola pops down to Heathrow in the WFC minibus to collect 'em.

Much less stress!

[Ant040689]

lol yeh it was a little chaotic and now find ourselves in a position where there a huge amount of players on our team vying for the same spots, all of around the same quality. Will be tough for Holloway to keep everyone happy.

[Ant040689]

Elliot Grandin makes the cut, wow. I cannot believe Garvan has been dropped here. Also the French Badger we bought only in the summer doesn't make it, Florian Marange.

Stephen Dobbie and Wilbraham the other two notables not making the cut.

1. Neil Alexander
2. Barry Bannan H
3. Yannick Bolasie
4. Marouane Chamakh
5. Damien Delaney
6. Kagisho Dikgacoi
7. Danny Gabbidon H
8. Dwight Gayle  H
9. Elliot Grandin
10. Adlene Guedioura
11. Jack Hunt         H
12. Mile Jedinak
13. Jimmy Kebe
14. Adrian Mariappa H
15. Patrick McCarthy H
16. Dean Moxey H
17. Stuart O'Keefe H
18. Jonathan Parr
19. Kevin Phillips H
20. Lewis Price  H
21. Jason Puncheon H
22. Cameron Jerome H
23. Julian Speroni
24. Jerome Thomas H
25. Joel Ward          H

And to round off the post with a bit of comedy have a look at what Owen Garvan has put up on twitter within the last hour

owen garvan ‏@garvalution 40m

I'll be here longer then he will...trust me

Would be interested to know who he has directed that tweet at! Sassy!

[pleno1]

what a terrible squad, has to be the worst ever.

[The Camel]

Elliot Grandin makes the cut, wow. I cannot believe Garvan has been dropped here. Also the French Badger we bought only in the summer doesn't make it, Florian Marange.

Stephen Dobbie and Wilbraham the other two notables not making the cut.

1. Neil Alexander
2. Barry Bannan H
3. Yannick Bolasie
4. Marouane Chamakh
5. Damien Delaney
6. Kagisho Dikgacoi
7. Danny Gabbidon H
8. Dwight Gayle  H
9. Elliot Grandin
10. Adlene Guedioura
11. Jack Hunt         H
12. Mile Jedinak
13. Jimmy Kebe
14. Adrian Mariappa H
15. Patrick McCarthy H
16. Dean Moxey H
17. Stuart O'Keefe H
18. Jonathan Parr
19. Kevin Phillips H
20. Lewis Price  H
21. Jason Puncheon H
22. Cameron Jerome H
23. Julian Speroni
24. Jerome Thomas H
25. Joel Ward          H

And to round off the post with a bit of comedy have a look at what Owen Garvan has put up on twitter within the last hour

owen garvan ‏@garvalution 40m

I'll be here longer then he will...trust me

Would be interested to know who he has directed that tweet at! Sassy!

Holloway would be my guess.

[Ant040689]

Could possibly be directed at the guy that got in ahead of him, Grandin. But you are most probably right. I find it a little unnerving for it to be Holloway though, as that would shed some more light to rumours that Holloway's job isn't completely safe. As in it is on quite shaky ground as the Mirror reported recently.

[Ant040689]

what a terrible squad, has to be the worst ever.

I think we haven't added any improvement in terms of quality, aside from maybe Bannan, but I don't know much about him, and maybe Jerome being better than Chamakh, but I don't think so.

We have good cover now which is great to see.

In terms of it being the worst squad, that may be correct, but only on paper.

I think we have enough to stay up, and will do some earlier than the final day. I like the fact we are still using the two sitting midfielders, two wide wingers, and one up front. It is what the squad are used to and is why we have been successful.

Happy with some of these guy's steps up to the prem too, especially our main man Jedinak, who I did say last year was of Prem quality which a lot of people had a go at me for!

I think there is a lot to be said about how well a team gel and their attitude to how good their chances are of survival, but I may well be eating my words come the end of the season.

[pleno1]

how many of your players do you think would get in swanseas first 11 and swanseas 25 man squad?

[Ant040689]

Speroni in for Vorm for me.

Jedinak perhaps in the middle, but definitely in the 25. Williams would actually suit Swansea down to a tee with his style and would be in the squad. Bolasie probably gets in their squad as I think he is better, or potentially so, well we will see, than Nathan Dyer. Across the back you keep Swansea's back line. Up front you keep Michu and Bony over what we have.

A lot of that is not the most well advised as i don't really know what their subs are like.

[Ant040689]

Why Swansea anyway?

And I have explained before why I think we will stay up, I just have to wait and see if our performances have been just as a honeymoon period or if we will have what it takes.

[TightEnd]

The Palace squad is miles better than some I could name that finished with well under 25 points

Ipsiwch, Derby, my Leicester side of 94-95, Barnsley, Swindon. All never had a hope, and none invested to the extent that Palace have just done. Not going to get players of the next level up to go to Palace anyway, to the extent that Caridff say have got Caulker, Medel etc thats a step above and to do with wages, Malaysian backing etc

I think they will go, but probably on c30-34 points which means they will be nowhere near "terrible" "worst squad ever"

[Ant040689]

Ty for the input Tighty, I have a very shallow knowledge of the prem, especially on relegation sides.

I think if I am going to add one more point, that may be underrepresented it will be that Chamakh is probably going to be an amazing player for us. The only attack minded player in our team that will have his place cemented in the squad. I say that because Holloway said he would build the team around him but that was before Jerome came in and I would be shocked if that has changed Chamakh being our main striker.

Chamakh was just off a goal every two games in just over 20 starts for Arsenal, a stat that gets overlooked. He looked great for us against Sunderland, with great flicks and helping other players getting involved, and as he showed against Stoke he has a great finish on him. I think we could make him flourish as he will be our number 1 and will be loved here.

He celebrated our third goal on Saturday from the bench by running out of the dugout and looking visibly enthralled. He seems up for it, and is going against the mentality I thought he would have with us of being moody, offbeat and lacking the effort needed.

Still yet to see Bolasie and I have him down as the surprise package in our squad. He is my favourite Palace player and watching him play excited me more than Zaha. We were utterly spoiled as fans seeing those two on either wing.