I would not go as far as saying that the signing of Flamini was under-whelming, but he is an uncharismatic holding midfield player, albeit one with an impressive CV.
As a squad player, with Mile Jedinak now at Aston Villa the signing makes sense.
And it gives me an unexpected opportunity to look at the history of Palace signing defensive midfield players, the guy who used to wear the number 4 back in the day, because number 4 was the right number, not just the most convenient available number.
I guess Flamini getting 4 is bad news for the campaign to retire Dean Moxey’s number.
We have produced some pretty good defensive midfielders ourselves – in my memory starting with Peter Nicholas, then others such as Gary Stebbing, Gareth Southgate (who did not play centre back for us), Bobby Bowry, Ricky Newman, Steve Thomson, Tom Soares (162 games apparently) and Ben Watson – but in this article I’m just looking at players we have brought in rather than developed.
At the opposite extremes of good and bad were two players signed or released, like Flamini, from the Arsenal.
David Price had been born locally but not signed for the Palace, and he was a well known player as he had been part of the Arsenal squad that had reached three successive cup finals between 1978 and 1980. He played alongside the likes of Liam Brady, but there was no-one at Palace in Brady’s class to make Price look good.
David Madden arrived at a happier time for Palace and he fitted in well. Injuries meant that Madden did not play that many games but he was a superior passer of the ball, a player not scared of putting in a tackle, and not scared of taking penalties in pressure situations.
In between the signings of Price and Madden, Palace sourced their holding midfield players from Wimbledon, other South London non-league clubs and the North.
Wimbledon’s success was a constant annoyance after they achieved league status in the seventies. Ron Noades thought Wimbledon could only get so far, and sold the club to Sam Hamman and bought Palace instead.
As Wimbledon rose further up the league, we tried to put a spanner in the works by signing their best players. We got it right in the end with Andy Thorn and Eric Young, but our first attempts were not so successful – Steve Galliers and Steve Ketteridge huffed and puffed and that was about it.
Meanwhile Wimbledon carried on their merry way and found a thug called Jones who made a bit of an impact for them.
The same sort of impact that Geoff Thomas had for Palace. Thomas was more of a box-to-box midfielder and wore the number 8, but he deserves a mention. He came from Crewe shortly after he signed Kevin Taylor from Scunthorpe. Taylor looked class – although short and squat, he was a good passer of the ball and scored a few goals.
Sadly Taylor got injured, lost form and headed back North, leaving Thomas to be accompanied by some locally sourced non-league treasures – Tony Finnigan, Andy Gray and a bloke called Pardew.
After Thomas and then Gareth Southgate left us for new homes in the Midlands in nineties, we trawled other London clubs for their replacements – to Charlton for Darren Pitcher and Millwall for Andy Roberts. Both cost what seemed like a lot of money at the time, and both struggled to fill the boots of their predecessors.
That was especially disappointing in the case of Roberts who had looked really good in his early days at Millwall but looked a bit off the pace at Palace. Not off the pace in a Jamie Pollock manner – let’s not go there.
The new century saw Palace’s signings of holding midfielders get a bit more exotic, as we signed a number of international players, albeit ones of variable quality – Carl Fletcher played for Wales in the pre-Ledley wilderness years, while we had more success with Michael Hughes from a little further West.
Our two most notable successful signings were proper overseas signings – it doesn’t get better than Finland – and saw 15 become the new 4. Aki Riihilahti was a ball of energy in midfield, constantly harrying the opposition, and always looking to join the attacks.
Like Aki, Mile Jedinak was perhaps not the finest passer of the ball in Palace’s history, but was a great example of the modern version of the holding midfielder, acting as a central defender but in front of the back four. What Jedinak lacked in passing ability, he often made up for in leadership and determination – he played almost all of the play-off final on one leg, after Kagisha Dikgachoi (not signed from South London non-leagues) had to go off early.
So what are we looking for from Flamini – a late career flowering like Michael Hughes perhaps? The edgy class of a Dave Madden? Anything but the pie-eating prowess of Jamie Pollock.
1 comment
Jedinack lol, terrible terrible player for the past 2 seasons , just look at his stats, played far too deep may as well have been a cb , which just allowed even more pressure on us, go and watch some of his previous games ie the cup final eatch it twice in fact maybe 3 times for u , look at the stats then delete your ridiculous comment, jedi knackered not even fit to tie flamini boots, thats from a coach and a stat man , #FACTS
Comments are closed.