After the World Cup break what can Palace supporters expect? The honest answer is no one has any idea. We have never had a winter World Cup break so this is new territory for football.
Much like every club in the Premier League (and the Championship for that matter) Palace supporters will be hoping an improvement on the performances and results pre the World Cup break. Not that Palace have been doing badly at all but every club’s supporters will always see room for improvement. Even Arsenal supporters would find something that could be better!
For Palace there are reasons to be optimistic but also of course areas to worry about.
The main cause for optimism is we currently sit eleventh in the table after a relatively difficult start to the season. With a better performance and result against Forest away just before the World Cup we would be snapping at the heels of a European place.
The World Cup has been relatively kind to us in that we only had Ayew and Andersen in Qatar and, much to their personal disappointment, they were on the plane home at the earliest opportunity. With apparently no injury issues from their involvement that is further good news. The World Cup break has also given Patrick Vieira the opportunity to work with more or less a full squad together for over a month, which is a significant improvement on the actual pre-season over the summer. Hopefully the stay in Turkey, which from the club’s video looked to be at a fantastic hotel complex, has been a boost to fitness, morale and team bonding. Finally the World Cup break friendlies have presented a nice mix of opposition clubs including top of Serie A, Napoli.
Now for the slightly more uncertain bits (I won’t say negative!). Top of everyone’s list will be our inconsistency. One or, if we are lucky, two really solid performances will be followed by an Everton or Forest away type performance. Pre Everton I briefly spoke to a friendly barman in a Liverpool pub who was saying I must be delighted with how we were doing. He was incredulous when I qualified my agreement with him by saying we needed to be more consistent. Unfortunately the poor train service prevented me from having the time to go back to the pub post-match to say, “see what I mean now?”
At this stage it is impossible to say whether the World Cup break has allowed Vieira to address the causes of that inconsistency but this is linked to the other uncertainty, namely the need for further recruitment. Our starting team is more or less on a par with what we had last season, with exception of the loss of the Conor Gallagher Energiser bunny, but after that we are pretty thin. The worry here is two fold. First of all, when we have away days like Everton and Forest, the options available to change things are fairly limited. Although we have come from behind in all but one of our wins, the change of fortune has come from a change in tactics rather than a change in personnel. The second aspect of the recruitment issues is what happens when we have injuries.
The long-term absence of James McArthur has been a real loss but at his age and with his recent injury record it is unrealistic to expect him to be a consistent member of the first team. Ironically, and sadly, the same has to be said of Nathan Ferguson although clearly he is just at the start of what we still hope will be a long career. Otherwise, we have remained relatively injury free, so far this season but there is no guarantee at all that this will continue. With the return of Chris Richards we have good cover at centre back but otherwise in nearly every position our depth is not great with an injury or two meaning we are relying on youth team members on the bench If not actually starting.
With the January transfer window just around the corner the rumours are already starting but unfortunately they are all focussed on when and where Wilf will depart. I am hoping that Steve, Dougie and co. are quietly working behind the scenes to bring in at least a couple of players, ideally in midfield and in attack. Otherwise at best we are going to struggle to use substitutions to affect matches, and in the worst case we may have a significantly weakened team if injuries do start to hit.
As alluded to above the other issue is what will happen with Mr. Zaha and his contract running down at the end of the season. At this point there has to be a realistic chance that this will be his last season with us and a result we do need to have a plan as to how his goals, assists and general attacking play is replaced. That is going to be a real challenge and will possibly be the most important decision the club hierarchy has faced in terms of player additions since we have been in the Premier League. Hopefully the right answer(s) will be found. In any event, I keep reminding myself that in the 2013-14 season we finished 11th in the table without Wilf so it is possible. As long as it does not require the return of Tony Pulis!
It is now not long until the Palace rollercoaster gets started again. Much as the ride has been smoother under Vieira I expected some ups and downs over the next part of the season.
