In part 1, Jon looked at how Palace’s owners’ actions affect us all, as well as plans for the ‘Palace Project’. Now, he continues trying to work out what’s happening at Selhurst.
PAT
THE ISSUE: Steve Parish appears a largely decent man, so he knows that firing Patrick Vieira and his managerial team was very harsh indeed. In March, following an uncomfortable three months packed with tough fixtures, constipated football and disappointing results, it did feel that Palace (although 12th) would soon be sliding dangerously close to the bottom 3 – so, on March 17, Steve picked up his phone.
THE BACKGROUND: In 2021, Roy had been replaced by Patrick and fans rejoiced in beautiful football. In 2023, Patrick was replaced by Roy and fans rejoiced in beautiful football. No wonder Palace fans felt confused!
Turning to the media for guidance was futile. The media called the replacement of Vieira with Roy a “revival”, a “renaissance”, a “miracle”, a “masterstroke”. Parish also gushed praise in Roy’s direction. But was it really as fantastic as it seemed? Was Roy truly such a big improvement on Patrick?
THE FACTS: With Roy as Manager, 7 of his 9 games in charge were against teams below Palace in the table. These were Roy’s 9 results in charge last season:
P9 W5 D2 L2 GF17 GA10 PTS17
Leicester H 2-1 W
Leeds A 5-1 W
Southampton A 2-0 W
Everton H 0-0 D
Wolves A 0-2 L
West Ham H 4-3 W
Tottenham A 0-1 L
Bournemouth H 2-0 W
Fulham A 2-2 D
It’s interesting to note that, with Patrick as manager, against exactly the same opponents, a few months previously in exactly the same 2022/23 season, the results of the reverse fixtures against the same teams are almost the same:
P9 W5 D1 L3 GF 9 GA 13 PTS 16
Leicester A 0-0 D
Leeds H 2-1 W
Southampton H 1-0 W
Everton A 0-3 L
Wolves H 2-1 W
West Ham A 2-1 W
Tottenham H 0-4 L
Bournemouth A 2-0 W
Fulham H 0-3 L
There was no doubt the performances under Roy were a clear improvement on the previous weeks, but results show Roy only produced one more point!
Worry Rating: Normal. Steve Parish’s message has been crystal clear. “We liked what we saw at the end of the season, so let’s have more of the same!” Could Steve be wrong?
ON & UP
THE ISSUE: 2022/23 truly was a nightmare season. Is it a real concern that this could happen again or was it a one-off, where we can bury it and try simply to manage the outfall of what it’s caused?
THE BACKGROUND: No ball had been kicked in anger before the season rapidly became a worrying mess. Not only did Patrick inherit the split pre-seasons with two squads, the mad 21,000-mile travel schedule and the jet lag. He also had to coach through the absurd stop-start 4 months from August to January:
7 games in 29 days
Then no games for 28 days
Then 9 games in 43 days
Then no games for 44 days
Then 6 games in 27 days.
This had deeply damaging effects on key factors like match fitness, rhythm, intensity and continuity of emotion – not just for the players, but the coaching staff too.
Obviously, similar sorts of hardships hit all clubs last season, but there was one more factor affecting Palace in a different way to other clubs – the ridiculously uneven fixture list handed to Palace last June. Okay, so by the time St Patrick’s Day rattled around, Vieira had registered no wins for 10 weeks, but look at who we played in that time ….
Manchester City (lost 1-0 to a crazy penalty conceded at the death against a team that beat RB Leipzig 7-0 just 4 days later)
Brighton (lost 1-0, but should’ve been 2 up after 10 minutes)
Aston Villa (lost 1-0, after dubious VAR ruled out Zaha’s 3rd minute opener)
Manchester United (lost 2-1)
We also had worthy draws against Manchester United, Liverpool, Newcastle United and
Brentford (the latter saved only by a 96th minute equaliser).
Every team we played was higher than Palace in the table.
THE WORRY RATING: Not sure. Can we safely forget about last season – or will it come back to haunt us?
SUMMER WINDOW
THE ISSUE: Steve can’t wait for the end of this transfer window, even if it’s only to know what our playing squad and our bank balance look like when we all wake up on 2nd September.
While Brighton have started to surge forward at the highest levels, many fans feel that Palace look like we’re doing little more than holding on. This summer, we’ve lost Luka, Macca and Wilf, but so far we’ve picked up just one player, on a free transfer. We can only create cash for spending by selling shares in the club (which could jeopardise Parish’s control position) or by selling players.
Under the Financial Fair Play (FFP) formula, incoming proceeds from player sales create more room for spending, so some big sales would really come in handy. But, after Wilf’s departure, losing any more of our best players now risks that we might lose our place in the Premier League.
THE BACKGROUND: When Palace have money, Parish always ensures that the dosh really does get spent on advancing the club on or off the field. When Blitzer and Harris invested in 2016, we quickly bought Townsend, Tomkins and Benteke. In that winter window, we then bought PVA, Schlupp and Milivojevic. In 2019, when AWB was sold, a big chunk went towards the Academy. In 2021, when Sorloth had been sold and Textor pumped in cash, we bought Andersen, Guehi, Olise and Edouard. When Textor completed payment for his shares in 2022, Palace made a down payment for the Main Stand development.
The rest of the time, Parish has Palace making do and spending as little as we can. For example, when Benteke and Gallagher both left in 2022, neither were replaced. And, even when bargains do become available this summer (like Jimenez at 5.5m and Pulisic for less than £20million), Palace are just not in the race.
This summer, the only signing to date is Jefferson Lerma, a proven Premier League performer who cost nothing. Brilliant! Except, this signing takes me back to 2019 and reminds me of when we signed Kouyate. He cost a lot more (£10million quid), but both were similar age on arrival – Kouyate was 28 when he came from West Ham, while Lerma is 27. Both had had 4 years in England and similar international experience. Kouyate certainly went on to give Palace good value with 108 appearances and 2 goals in 4 years, and we hope for the same for Lerma. He comes in to replace Luka. We know the yellow card similarities with Luka, but Lerma’s record has been improving – Lerma’s yellow card tally is down to 7 last season (Doucoure had 9).
Playing with two tigerish tacklers in Doucoure and Lerma to win the ball for 4 gifted attackers is obviously the hope for this season for every Palace fan. But who will those 4 be? Buying players without selling first appears to be very difficult indeed. Palace run a very high wage bill compared to the club’s income – and new financial rules coming in over the next two years place the spotlight on that very percentage.
It is in the market, of course, where the Doog’s summer magic has proved so effective in buying players before their value really rises. Per transfermarkt, these are current market values of Palace’s 5 most valuable players:
Eze £34m
Olise £32.3m
Guehi £30m
Doucoure £30m
Andersen £25.5m
Great news! These are all higher prices than Palace paid, plus powerful rumours suggest any or all of these players could become subject to bidding wars so Palace could look to use interest from multiple clubs to drive up the price. The financial boost from selling might well be enormous – but, without one or more of these talents, would our team be capable of staying up?
What’s the plan then? With the best will in the world, it can be seen that Roy has only a one-year view of what’s right. And, while Roy undoubtedly has better players than ever before at Palace, plus the man-management skills, the media skills and arguably the deepest well of experience to be found in the Premier League, does Roy have the desire, ambition and vision needed to develop and re-build this playing squad?
THE WORRY RATING: High. The season is so close now, and Roy still doesn’t know every detail of the playing staff that will be available to him. We can’t be sure if any more players at all will come to Palace this summer. And, if we don’t improve, we will deteriorate!
AHA
THE ISSUE: Ahamada currently looks like he’s a curious purchase that must be a concern for Parish.
THE BACKGROUND: As the January transfer window grew near last winter, you probably recall that Vieira was telling anyone who would listen that Palace lacked experience and that was the core problem – naivete around the pitch. So whose idea was it to shell out 10 precious million quid on a raw kid? Back in January, the board must have already been thinking that Patrick might have to go, so you can see that the board should perhaps have been reluctant to spend out so much money on a player Pat wanted.
From what I’ve seen so far, I like the look of Ahamada even though he’s only played a total of 94 minutes. In SIX MONTHS! First team wise, he’s mostly been on the outside, not even a spot on the bench most weeks. Please don’t let him be the new Riedewald – another player I like who doesn’t impress the right people enough to get in the team very often and has so far cost Palace 26 million quid in transfer fees and wages.
THE WORRY RATING: Low. The money’s been spent on Ahamada, so let’s see if Palace can give him the opportunities to show what he can do.
In part 3, Jon will focus on Steve’s recent strategy regarding Wilfried Zaha, as well as next season and new information as to Palace being up for sale.
