A lot had been said of the feeling towards former Palace boss Tony Pulis.
If it was not evident before, then during Monday Night Football that featured Everton and West Bromwich Albion it was clear that there are a lot of Eagles fans on social media with very negative feelings towards the Welshman.
It is not a too dissimilar reaction to when Dougie Freedman left the club for Bolton Wanderers and he had the fans admiration and respect as a player before he became manager. When the day came for Pulis to leave the club, which would happen at some stage, he did not stand a chance.
As manager of West Bromwich Albion, he will return to Selhurst Park in April. The fixture had enough of an edge as it was following the head injury Julian Speroni suffered at the elbow of Craig Dawson. Pulis joining them only increases the relevance of the game regardless of the two clubs respective positions in the league.
I have a lot of admiration for West Brom as a football club. Many of you know that we often link up with fan site Baggies Facts particularly in the summer when we joined forces to cover the World Cup. Not only that, there are plenty of similarities between the clubs. The only difference of late is that the Baggies have spent several seasons in the top division.
That is something that we can emulate. They had a tough season last time around and just about survived when their Premier League status was under real threat. With Pulis at the helm, they are unlikely to go as close.
We all know what Pulis can do for a club. We saw it first hand last season but there is rarely any time for sentiment in football in the game these days.
It is all in the past now but it is still hard to forget the position we were in when Ian Holloway left. Pulis put his reputation on the line to take the job. No, he was not forced to take the job, he chose to take it on. However, he did not do it alone, the players had much more input that many in the media suggested.
Palace finished 11th in the Premier League. Yes, 11th. A club that scraped themselves off the floor and achieved promotion through the back door after consecutive seasons in the Championship finishing 21st, 20th and 15th.
That night at home to Fulham was a sign that it would be a swift return. Losing Holloway was expected but encouraging Pulis to join, the obvious choice, would take time. Time that many of us though we did not have. Oh how hindsight is a wonderful thing. Looking back, we had all the time in the world as all we wanted was a 17th place finish. That would have done just fine.
A few points picked up on the way to the January transfer window, a couple of shrewd deals later and we were set for an assault on the Premier League run in. None of us expected what was to follow and it was quite an assault with a run of results that would end up seeing us with the highest finish that the club has managed in the Premier League.
Of course, that is the top division in its current guise. Many of you younger fans may not know that Palace finished 3rd in the old First Division in 1990/91 but that was before records began, or so we are led to believe. There was life before the Premier League.
A finish as high as we managed last season was way beyond anything any Palace fan could have hoped for. It was far beyond any of mine, that is for sure.
For that reason alone, and even though Pulis left under a cloud for reasons that we may never ever know about, I will applaud his return to Selhurst Park on Saturday 18th April.
However, I can assure you that as soon as the whistle blows at 3pm that afternoon, I will be as red and blue as any of you.
