Alright, so we lost at the weekend against City and it might have burst our little bubble for a moment but the bubble should not be popped beyond repair.
Sometimes you can lose well and make things difficult and I believe that is what we did. However, there were a few moments when I wondered if both teams were simply going for the approach of trying to get injuries in the opposition lines to make the rest of the season as difficult for them as possible.
There is very much a change in the squad attitude and whilst they may not be mentioning such changes or expressing this new happy-go-lucky publicly it feels pretty obvious when watching.
Coach John Salako continues to focus his attentions greatly on Wilfried Zaha and uses every single moment as a chance to talk to him, offer him advice and give him a pick me up. Whatever was said at half-time at the weekend certainly seemed to work and Zaha bounced back in the second half much more lively, ready and confident.
Our defense often makes me nervous but I actually spotted moments in a few players where I need to feel more relaxed around them. Brede Hangeland continues to do his deep squat position to get his head on the ball and it is generally pretty effective (though it often makes me laugh).
I did notice something else and on leaving the stadium I got on the phone to my partner and said ‘Martin Kelly did not have that bad a game today did he?’. You all know me by now from one place or another to know that I really have no confidence in the man with the shortest England international playing career ever. At the weekend he showed me something that perhaps I have just missed when everybody else has raved about him giving him higher season reviews than generally accepted far better players.
I am expecting that to be a one off though and be bitterly disappointed against Tottenham Hotspur or Charlton Athletic or both. In fact I expect to be frustrated in a lot of the team by the end of the ninety minutes against Charlton but that is just because the cup game against Shrewsbury the first ninety minutes did nothing to raise my confidence in our back up squad. Kelly did have something to prove and had to really make the most of the time he had on the Premier League pitch covering for Joel Ward while he is injured. He certainly did himself proud.
In fact I might even go as far as to say that if Kelly can keep this level of performance up and not make any of those dreadful once a game critical mistakes and Ward does not offer up any improvement on recent questionable form on returning from injury, then perhaps Kelly has found his way back into the starting line up. No, this is not April Fools Day. I am actually praising Martin Kelly.
I do actually have a good feeling about the next couple of games, that the team are going to focus on a lot of positives from the City game and just continue to get stronger and bounce back with a determination to get three more points and make our way back up to nearer the top of the league table.
If we lose to Spurs I will be pretty disappointed in Palace and that is quite a strange feeling in itself.
