The Amazon Prime coverage was greeted by a light and pyrotechnic show rarely seen at Selhurst Park with Bournemouth the travelling opponents, but did this pre-match show and subsequent abject performance serve as a metaphor for the lights starting to dim on Palace’s season?
The temptation following such a poor showing is to react with impassioned anger and frustration. This was saved with a comment on the club social media and WhatsApp messages between Palace supporting family members. Now the logical comment can surface.
I wrote earlier in the season about the club’s desire to push for the top half, to compete seemingly with the league’s best and firmly embed our position as a long standing Premier League outfit. When looking at our current position, we need to look further beyond the first team and even the coaching staff, but more of the club as a whole.
With all the above considered, let’s begin with the first team. When you now consider the statement of intent in embedding ourselves in the top ten, we now realise how unrealistic this objective is. The squad is weaker than previous seasons, we have lost our talisman in Wilfried Zaha which, in hindsight, relates very much to a situation with our playing squad.
The choice of Zaha to leave was taken out of our hands but with this considered, there are fellow players who should not be afforded this luxury. The troublesome spot of full-backs, long exhausted chats have existed in recent years regarding the positions without any action from the club. Joel Ward and Tyrick Mitchell have long been uncontested in these positions which creates numerous situations, the obvious of near certainties to start every game, the lack of cover should they be injured added to our one dimensional approach as we lack a player that brings a Plan B to the game plan. Failing to secure fitness and first team football for Nathan Ferguson whilst a loan market push for Chelsea’s Lewis Hall meant we entered the season ill-prepared for defensive switches and injuries.
Without delving too deeply into the squad issues, the lack of quality and depth has been ruthlessly highlighted in coming weeks with Eberechi Eze, Cheick Doucoure, Michael Olise, and now Tyrick Mitchell hitting the treatment table.
The next point cannot be started without visiting one factor that potentially provided a measure of what was to come without us knowing.
A long serving player of consistency and stature in the club, the club captaincy was handed to Ward. I couldn’t help but feel this was a opportunity to inject a new vision into the first team that matched the competing for top ten status when beginning the season. An opportunity to introduce Marc Guehi as the new club captain was missed. A young, confident defender and ball carrier, a player to be proud of at the heart of our team and seemingly nearing the top of the list for his national team, this should have been a statement to a new Palace. Instead I can’t help but feel this was a metaphor for the club approach, a safe move with what we know and what we trust but not progressive.
With the sacking of Patrick Viera, the appointment of Roy Hodgson very much reflects the above point regarding Ward. When interviewed towards the back end of last season, Hodgson seemingly took exception to be described as a comfy pair of shoes by an interviewer, but despite the comfy fit in the spring, the shoes are beginning to rub during the winter.
Having watched fellow Premier League teams apply their trade in recent weeks there, is one major factor that causes concern; the distinct lack of creativity and cohesion amongst the Palace play.
There are the obvious answers of teams have superior talent, players with greater ability to create and work with cohesion but this cannot be said of just the top teams. The ability of fellow strugglers to work patterns of play, create triggers and dynamic runs with targeted link up play is the element that sees them find success over Palace and exposing the lack of imagination and distinct rigid formation that Hodgson’s charges exude weekly.
What progression can we expect when we don’t employ a progressive coach and squad to match?
Finally there are two other elements that need to have greater time and insight afforded to them, but for the time being I place them on record.
The club’s state of the art new academy will wield future talents no doubt but the club is experiencing a real dearth in emerging talent ready to represent.
Recent managers and head coaches have flirted with the offering of opportunities to our young players but that is as far as the progression goes. In the recent past the likes of Aaron Wan Bissaka and Tyrick Mitchell have emerged to establish their first team presence but these introductions were born from necessity due to injuries to senior players at the time. We appear to be lacking the quality for players to convert academy progression into first team success, or is this conversion down to the lack of trust Hodgson potentially holds in our developing players as we have our marquee signing warming the bench weekly without accumulating minutes in the Premier League?
Secondly, and a well known fact, the lack of investment has caught up with the club. The tedious stadium development has rumbled on for the past three years, the grey areas of ownership and investment appears to be an ever consistent issue and Steve Parrish’s honesty and openness to provide insight into club management gives direction of the club’s intent to generate income away from the matchday experience; is this where the priorities of the academy lie? There appears to be a crop of players being developed and recruited into the system without seemingly having the opportunity nor ability to make the first team set up, are we now working towards a scaled down Chelsea structure, recruit, develop, loan out and sell?
With all the above considered, and many more factors, it appears that Palace are at a crossroads. The January transfer window is long considered a period difficult to do business, difficult to recruit quality at value; can Palace afford the risk?
The questions outweigh the answers. Can Palace risk replacing a coaching team mid-season? Can they risk the January transfer window? Is the academy’s priority a talent development process or a money maker? Can they convince themselves and others that they truly have top ten ambitions and the structure to deliver?
The crossroad is here. It’s more a question of which direction Palace want and whether they have the ability and ambition to really make their pre-season statement count.
1 comment
Your comments are spot on. We’re now paying for the lack of investment in building a team with depth, a lack clarity around the future management and coaching staff, and stalling the development of a new stand – which would undoubtedly lift the morale and confidence of both players and supporters – just look at Tottenham and watch Everton!. Going forward we need more decisive leadership on what we want to achieve, as well as how and who is going to get us there.
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