September has taken a turn for Palace as well as fans of the Eagles.
With the upcoming World Cup in Qatar overtaking five weeks of the Premier League season, in only ten weeks; you would imagine this period of the season would be jam packed.
However, due to unforeseen circumstances, Palace are left without any fixtures for what will be 27 days.
The unfortunate passing of Her Majesty, The Queen, Elizabeth II, at the age of 96, has led to the postponement of not all sporting activities, but all football fixtures across the four nations between the 9th and the 11th September. This leaves Palace’s Sunday home fixture against Manchester United without a date.
Palace have already had the following fixture away to rivals Brighton, postponed due to a lack of cohesion and competence from Sussex Police to combat the rail strikes across the south. Sussex Police, Brighton and the Premier League therefore decided to postpone the game, again with no replacement date. This bodes well for Brighton, who have just seen their manager Graham Potter depart the club for Chelsea.
With the addition of an international break, there is a period of twenty-seven days without a fixture. In the middle of the season, this cannot be a positive thing for a club. Our form leading up to this has been poor in parts, dropping points from winning positions against City and Brentford, whilst holding Newcastle to a draw away from home.
Palace have taken six points from their opening six games with a win against Villa and taking a point from Liverpool, Brentford and Newcastle. Scoring seven goals and conceding nine, Palace have work to do, especially in their defensive positioning. As well as this, tactical errors and substitutions need some more consideration, as we have witnessed the focus on the pitch deteriorating towards the end of games.
Our pre-season was almost non-existent. As half of the team was out in Australia on a pre-season tour, whilst the other half was playing their friendlies back in England. This was evident in our opening fixture against Arsenal, that the team was incohesive.
Therefore, all is not so bad for our squad, as this break could give us our chance to re-group and get the squad together in training to straighten out our positional and technical mistakes. As well as this, the advantage comes with an additional rest for the players. Also allowing time for our injury recoveries in players such as James Mcarthur and Jack Butland.
On the other hand, there is the lack of match fitness to contend with. A month-long break mid-season could see a vast change to some of the good form that we have witnessed on the pitch. Wilfried Zaha has started this new campaign in great form, with 15 shots and 4 goals, including that beauty against Villa to make it 3-1.
The backlog of games will come around in the New Year, with these games needing to be rescheduled after the trio of fixtures at Christmas. Alongside this, the third round of the FA Cup and any involvement in a potential cup run. All clubs across the EFL will be experiencing this congestion of fixtures and in turn, may affect form throughout the season.
This brings in the importance of squad depth, of which Palace appear to be lacking. With a fairly lacklustre transfer window, in comparison to previous seasons. Palace will be relying on key players such as Zaha, Michael Olise, Eberechi Eze and Jean- Philippe Mateta to remain fit and will test the rotation of our squad.
Therefore, January could become crucial in eyeing up transfer targets and getting a new lease of life into the squad. With heavy links to Aaron Wan Bissaka and Conor Gallagher towards the end of the summer window, these players and that depth in the squad could be vital in retaining the form and standards that Palace have witnessed since the arrival of Patrick Vieira, 18 months ago.
Nothing ever comes easy for football fans. This is going to be a long season.
