Sometimes in football, and with Palace, you have to sit back, take a deep breath and try to forget that you support one of the most topsy turvy football clubs in England.
For me, the best trick is logging out of Twitter, switching off my phone and sleeping on it, because waking up with fresh thoughts can help dilute the pain of five straight defeats, eight games without a win and forty odd days with the same points total.
Sometimes, after a really awful performance (the 3-0 at home to Chelsea springs to mind) it takes a few sleeps and some alcohol to get over it. I am an optimistic person. I view our performances with a glass half full approach, although recently that has been exceptionally difficult, and I am glad that a timely yet unfortunate and highly condemnable hack on this website prevented me from venting my anger at our performances in recent weeks.
It has not got much better this week really, although at least we actually got a point and ended that poisonous run of form that cost us several places in the league. We are only three points from seventh as it stands, so really the glass is still well over half full for now. It is incredible how we can go from the highs of 2015 to the lows of the last six weeks.
It really has been a dreary start to the year from a Palace perspective, and aside from the exciting and significant Premier League debut of Hiram Boateng, our staid performances look set to stay for some time.
The game, much like the weather, was a mix of dull and lifeless moments where we had no control of the game, with small bursts of life, the odd gust of wind, Wilfried Zaha flying down the wings, doing all the hard work, trying his hardest to secure a result for his boyhood club. Full debutant Emmanuel Adebayor echoed the classy footballer that Yohan Cabaye looked when he joined last year, and hopefully, when fully fit, will be the answer to all our problems.
Looking at the league, it really is as difficult to predict as Zaha’s next hairstyle. Positions are changing as frequently as players are being added to our injury list, yet there is one team that consistently outperforms everyone, and shows that anybody really can beat anybody in this division.
Leicester City and their players prove you do not have to be a ‘big club’ with ‘big players’ and high price tags. Playing positive football, with talented yet underrated players has worked wonders for them, and I hope they go on to win the league, and prove everybody wrong. What a fantastic achievement that would be, and what a shake up to the league it will cause if it happens.
Focusing away from the league, it would seem we only save our best performances for the cup, where we have beaten two Premier League sides to get to the fifth round. That is where we face an in form Tottenham Hotspur side for yet another Premier League encounter of this FA Cup campaign. Spurs have put in some terrific performances this season and they seem to develop a new star player each season. First it was Gareth Bale, then it was Harry Kane, now it is Dele Alli. This is not an out and out striker destined to score thirty goals a season, despite his best efforts so far! Let us hope this is one of many future superstars coming out of Tottenham, and hopefully straight into the England squad.
We are in a great position to build upon our cup performances and use it to boost our league form. A win over Tottenham would do wonders for our confidence, which is sorely lacking. Whilst sleeping off our Tuesday night loss against Bournemouth, I dreamt of an Adebayor thirty yard screamer going in the top right corner of Hugo Lloris’ goal to send us through to the next round. I dreamt of Yannick Bolasie taking the ball past three players, playing it in to Cabaye, who in turn feeds in Zaha who …
Well, you get the picture.
I am not an optimist. I am a fantasist. You need to be with Palace, it gets you through the hard times, those times that it seems there really is no silver lining, and that the glass really is half empty. However, it is fact that those times are finite, and we are enjoying one of the best periods in our history. As they say, form is temporary, class is permanent.
Whilst we cannot say we are the classiest team, especially with our shed of a stadium, and, with social media going into meltdown about our recent performances, it is important to remember that we should never let a little bit of poor form ruin our day.
I return to where I started this piece. If we continue to not play well, or if we put in a poor performance, just sit back, take that deep breath and think for a moment. Even better, put your pyjamas on and go to sleep for the night. Dream of all the good times. The play-offs, the Kevin Phillips penalty, continuously beating Liverpool and even THAT Darren Ambrose goal. You will wake up craving the next Palace game more than ever, with the adversity of the previous day far behind you, and who knows? Maybe that next game will be the one that nets us our first three points of the year.
Have faith Palace fans. Be an optimist.
UP THE EAGLES!
