What A Disappointment
It is the morning after the night before.
A night we spent drinking to drown out our sorrows of yesterday’s defeat at the Etihad Stadium against Manchester City.
We are feeling groggy and hoping it was just a nightmare. Not because we lost to a team that is regarded highly in the Premier League but because of how we played and perhaps how the officials acted.
The torment of a team with all three of their strikers out hammering three goals past us is of course painful and proves that our luck continues to be somewhere in the stratosphere instead of down on the pitch.
Yesterday we witnessed a team where defenders seemed passionless, lifeless and overwhelmed by their opposition. They did not track the ball down or mark the man in the way that they normally do and we even see Joel Ward and Scott Dann make unfortunate mistakes as opposed to Martin Kelly’s usual screw ups. I feel a little baffled. Watching them just did not feel right and it felt like I was watching poorly imitated clones.
I was sad to see Damien Delaney not stepping on to the pitch as part of the starting line-up. I have a, perhaps foolish, soft spot for him. However, it was clear that with Phil Dowd as referee having him on the pitch would have been a very risky decision. I feel that since Neil Warnock took over, Delaney has lost his controlled sense and that anger is creeping back into his game (although he does always seem to get angry on the run up to Christmas) and if he was on the pitch it would only have been a matter of time before he gave away a penalty.
As for some of Warnock’s decisions at other moments, I cannot forgive him. Yesterday we witnessed a very rare thing. Warnock, the man on a one-man-crusade to remove substitutions from football, actually made not one substitution but three.
Another reason why we thought that groggy head this morning might have been related to a nightmare, after all the unbelievable seemed to happen. I was delighted to see Warnock actually making changes when it was clear things were not working. But what were those changes?
Until yesterday I completely forgot about the existence of Jerome Thomas until he crawled onto the pitch yesterday and frankly his second performance of the season proved to be an appearance too many. He did nothing to inspire the side to push harder and he did nothing to prove to us, as fans, that he is worthy of making more appearances.
Bringing Wilfried Zaha on for Frazier Campbell was not the worst decision in the world. Zaha and Yannick Bolasie both worked well today and can have good linkage but I felt that we needed somebody that calls themselves a proper striker on the pitch. Both of them have the potential to play that role but not as solos.
Then bringing Barry Bannan on, when we are losing by three goals? Okay, so Joe Ledley picked up a knock but replenishing the midfield with a couple of minutes to go was clearly going to prove fruitless by Warnock. Dwight Gayle was on the bench (keeping himself nice and warm in a cosy looking woolly hat) and could have linked up with Zaha and Bolasie for those final few minutes.
The game yesterday is proof that we need a striker that is keen to throw themselves into the mix and actually shoot at goal. We cannot rely on our midfield to save us from the goal drought. Of course, going away to Manchester City was a tough game but we need somebody with guts and gusto to really bring the front players together, motivate the team and hammer balls into the back of the net. Who that should be, I wish I knew.
The need for a left back is also growing. We need Ward to return to right back so that we can be rid of Kelly and his constant every game mistakes. It is a shame that Neil Taylor of Swansea is the only left back that I can think of that might work in the team because the chances of him coming to Palace are about as high as me making flapjack successfully (very low).
I think that we should really focus on the strengths we have in the team and a lot of those players that work together happen to be Welsh. Pictures and discussions amongst Palace players on social media like Instagram show the Welsh members to be friends with each other and share that crucial football ethic and motivation. We need Jonny Williams to return to full fitness and get him in the team somewhere in January.
In reality me saying players, nationalities and positions is all a bit fruitless because people insist on telling me that I know nothing at all about football (yet I clearly understand the offside rule more than Phil Dowd’s merry men did in the game).
All I really want for Christmas are players that can do their job well and help form a Crystal Palace band (you know the one where Bolasie raps, Speroni is on drums while Ward and Delaney strum their guitars).
Have a good Christmas and a happy New Year to all of you. See you in January when, hopefully, Santa will have caught that ball of luck flying in the stratosphere and put it underneath the Crystal Palace Christmas tree.
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