First half I thought we were terrific. SCP appeared to have set them up well and although I was surprised to see Dervite out there, felt he did his job really well. Ric was brilliant. I love Yann to bits but if you want to play just one up front, it has to be Fuller for me. Couple of excellent chances made but alas missed and therein again lay our downfall.
Knew Palace would come out fighting and of course they did. Put us on the back foot from the off and it seemed only a matter of time before they scored. Some great saves from Hamer & some missed chances from them kept the sheet clean for a time.
Then the gaffer made a change....Didn't feel that Waggy needed subbing and to bring on a defence minded player who hasn't played for months seemed odd but in SCP we trust. Almost immediately, they equalised. IMHO this was the time to bring on Stephens & Haynes - the former to create something for the latter & Fuller but this didn't happen. It was obvious to me that we were sitting deep and allowing them to run at us and with their increasing confidence the inevitabilty of a 2nd goal was a matter of time. When our final 2 substitutions were made, it was too little too late and the rest is history.
Such a disappointing 2nd half and the 2 nd week running we have scored only to be overhauled by 2 quick goals. I hate to be critical of our manager but last week, just about everyone I spoke to felt we needed some fresh legs towards the end of the match, and today, without discussion, I felt we had the players on the bench to possibly turn the game back in our favour when it was 1all. In fact, before kick off, I commented what a strong bench we had today but when we needed attacking players to run at the Palace players, Wiggins was brought on...I think Haynes' face at the final whistle said it all - he hadn't been given a fair chance to show what we all know he does best. Gutting result .
We certainly need to bounce back at the first opportunity - and with victories recently against Blackpool & Blackburn, bring on another "B" team !
Hope so. I admire what Pritchard does but today and Derby immediately come to mind in missing great opportunities. An "engine room" midfielder should get 4 or 5 goals a season and his rate is nowhere near that.
Pritchard for the second week running showing he needs to bulk up to compete on a regular basis. Danny Haynes may aswell have just stood next to Speroni with all the offside decisions he had against him. Hamer kept that scoreline respecatble. WE NEED TO PUT AWAY OUR CHANCES!!! Fuller was a mich needed touch of class (that goal).
Superb support throughout the first 45,shame about the vandalism afterwards but I couldn't care by that point as I'd seen my team throw away another 3 points. Getting really sick and tired of this trend of losing from a winning position.
Came back to a pub full of palace fans who said if it had been a boxing match we may have just edged it on points,not forgetting who they had missing. Gutted.
CP set the team up properly in a 4-1-4-1, with as excellent game plan against Holloway's 4-2-3-1.. I thought he got the team selection right, with Dervite as the Defensive screen & Fuller as the lone striker. We dictated the pattern of play throughout the first half, took a deserved lead and should have doubled it. Holloway had to do something to change the pattern, so went 4-4-2 and then 4-3-3. He also changed their style of play, went more back to front and they upped the tempo. That was the crucial point, when they played at a higher tempo, our midfield crumbled, the B4 became exposed and we conceded the two goals. Bottom line is, when Sheff Wed & Palace upped the tempo to chase the game in the last 20 mins, we've cracked on both occasions. CP needs to address the problem as best he can, without it seems being able to bring in an experienced Central Midfielder to improve in that area. Stephens-Jackson-Pritchard couldn't see out the game last week, Dervite-Jackson-Pritchard this week. Who will he try next week? Whoever he picks, they need to take the responsibility to see out the game- its not always the managers fault.
No need to panic. Plenty of games to go, to get past the 50 point mark.
Hamer was class today apart from one mistake that unfortunately cost us. On balance he did more worldy saves than mistakes so overall I still think he had a very good game. Cort,Morro and Dervite won everything, Solly had his best game for a while, Fuller looked so up for it. None of the others were poor to me either, for much of today it was a top all round team performance.
I think unfortunately today was just one of those days (that seems to happen far too often at Selhurst).
A couple of lapses in concentration cost us, that first half was the best I've seen us for some time, and for those saying we were defensive, I disagree. From the off every free kick in their half had all the big men sent up and Palace didn't like it up 'em. The balance between being solid at the back and transitioning to attack was excellent in that first 45.
Taking Waggy off didn't change the game, unfortunately it was a case of they took their chances and we missed too many of ours. A draw would have been a fair result on reflection of both halves and on that showing Palace have no hope of a top two finish.
One other thing - I have never heard a ground go from being so quiet to being that noisy. To any stripeys reading this, that's not a compliment - I thought it was pathetic that they all sat on their hands in silence until the goals when they suddenly woke up. People say we're quiet at home, jesus, the West Stand is like a cauldron of passion compared to their entire ground (spotty ultras included).
The amount of times we go one goal up and then sink further and further back with our defence and midfield merging into one is a joke.
Wednesday, Huddersfield, Brighton, Derby and Palace come to mind.
We had so many chances but weren't clinical enough, no way we deserved to lose that over the 90 mins but fair play to them, in the end Palace just had a bit more quality. Holloway beat Powell in the tactics department just as Dave Jones did last week.
Got to Norwood junction about 12ish went to go to a pub turned out to be a home pub, ended up being escorted to the Prince George in Thornton Heath. To be fair the police were good with us, had aaugh and wasn being unreasonable at all. It was good in the Prince George, quite a few Charlton in there, we were all having a drink jumping about and singing.
Mental scenes when we scored, I honestly thought we'd go on to win the game. God knows how we didn't win that, it just all fell apart at the end again.
Thought the smashing of cars in the street was out of order but thought our support was quality again today.
The players looked absolutely devastated at the end, you could tell how much they wanted to win that game. Result certainly wasn't down to lack of effort.
Not comfortable with all this talk of "Powell should have done this" or "we went wrong there" - at the end of the day, we got beat by a team who is much stronger than us, as the league table shows. Nothing 'wrong' with that.
They are where we need to be. Thing is how do we get there ?
They're a settled championship side that has build over a few seasons. We're newly promoted and probably doing as good as expected. To stay up is the goal at the end of the season. There are other sides with lots of quality in their squads below us still, which in my view means that Powell is doing a good job. 100% support from me. Disappointed about today, more than gutted!
They are where we need to be. Thing is how do we get there ?
They have been really poor for 2-3 seasons. a lot of people tipped them to struggle this season but they had a few decent players break into their first team. Thats enough for us to make a push next season.
My only comment about the initial team line up and formation was that it looked like we'd put the biggest possible team out to bully them - and we did. Fuller, Dervite and Cort were very strong for the first half.
Just in after trying to rescue the day with old father weatherspoons, sometimes the word gutted isnt enough, bereft comes to mind great first half come on Sepp make all games 75 minutes we would surely be in a play off place. Nothing decided by todays result as mid table finish still beckons but my loathing for the stripey Nigels, whether they are a true rival or not is cemented. Wanton destruction aside our support was magnificent today any they know it.
just sat down again at my laptop again after deciding to give up reading this for a few hours. After reading the many comments & views on here I have come up with these views.
Too many "in CP we trust" for my liking............they said that about the captain of the Titanic and looked what happened there !
strikers generally win games & we had more strikers on the bench than in the starting 11 - you don't win too many games that way
sod 4-5-1 or 4-1-4-1 or 4-3-3......... this is football & not netball - all 11 men can run anywhere at any time, so just get the ball to the men furthest forward more often.
football is an easy game - all you have to do is score more goals than the opposition. That being the case why stop at 1 after 20 mins when you have another 70 mins to play. Score 3 goals in a game and the chances of losing are fairly small.
CP may be "learning" as a manager, but he doesn;t seem to be learning fast enough. I don't want my club to be a learning ground for incompetent managers, so a meassage to CP -either learn fast or ship out and go learn your trade elsewhere.
We can analyse to death but I was really impressed by our performance, particularly the first half. It's just a big shame that we don't defend and concentrate for 90 minutes- I haven't watched it back yet but that second goal was ridiculous, a free kick into the area left Murray with a nearly empty net. Ah well, we'll play them again next season and see what happens.
Comments
First half I thought we were terrific. SCP appeared to have set them up well and although I was surprised to see Dervite out there, felt he did his job really well. Ric was brilliant. I love Yann to bits but if you want to play just one up front, it has to be Fuller for me. Couple of excellent chances made but alas missed and therein again lay our downfall.
Knew Palace would come out fighting and of course they did. Put us on the back foot from the off and it seemed only a matter of time before they scored. Some great saves from Hamer & some missed chances from them kept the sheet clean for a time.
Then the gaffer made a change....Didn't feel that Waggy needed subbing and to bring on a defence minded player who hasn't played for months seemed odd but in SCP we trust. Almost immediately, they equalised. IMHO this was the time to bring on Stephens & Haynes - the former to create something for the latter & Fuller but this didn't happen. It was obvious to me that we were sitting deep and allowing them to run at us and with their increasing confidence the inevitabilty of a 2nd goal was a matter of time. When our final 2 substitutions were made, it was too little too late and the rest is history.
Such a disappointing 2nd half and the 2 nd week running we have scored only to be overhauled by 2 quick goals. I hate to be critical of our manager but last week, just about everyone I spoke to felt we needed some fresh legs towards the end of the match, and today, without discussion, I felt we had the players on the bench to possibly turn the game back in our favour when it was 1all. In fact, before kick off, I commented what a strong bench we had today but when we needed attacking players to run at the Palace players, Wiggins was brought on...I think Haynes' face at the final whistle said it all - he hadn't been given a fair chance to show what we all know he does best. Gutting result .
We certainly need to bounce back at the first opportunity - and with victories recently against Blackpool & Blackburn, bring on another "B" team !
Would've been at least four without him. Made two unbelievable saves and was very unlucky with the slip.
Certainly saved us more than let us down this season.
Who is next in this game?
Superb support throughout the first 45,shame about the vandalism afterwards but I couldn't care by that point as I'd seen my team throw away another 3 points. Getting really sick and tired of this trend of losing from a winning position.
Came back to a pub full of palace fans who said if it had been a boxing match we may have just edged it on points,not forgetting who they had missing. Gutted.
Holloway had to do something to change the pattern, so went 4-4-2 and then 4-3-3. He also changed their style of play, went more back to front and they upped the tempo. That was the crucial point, when they played at a higher tempo, our midfield crumbled, the B4 became exposed and we conceded the two goals.
Bottom line is, when Sheff Wed & Palace upped the tempo to chase the game in the last 20 mins, we've cracked on both occasions. CP needs to address the problem as best he can, without it seems being able to bring in an experienced Central Midfielder to improve in that area. Stephens-Jackson-Pritchard couldn't see out the game last week, Dervite-Jackson-Pritchard this week. Who will he try next week? Whoever he picks, they need to take the responsibility to see out the game- its not always the managers fault.
No need to panic. Plenty of games to go, to get past the 50 point mark.
I think unfortunately today was just one of those days (that seems to happen far too often at Selhurst).
A couple of lapses in concentration cost us, that first half was the best I've seen us for some time, and for those saying we were defensive, I disagree. From the off every free kick in their half had all the big men sent up and Palace didn't like it up 'em. The balance between being solid at the back and transitioning to attack was excellent in that first 45.
Taking Waggy off didn't change the game, unfortunately it was a case of they took their chances and we missed too many of ours. A draw would have been a fair result on reflection of both halves and on that showing Palace have no hope of a top two finish.
One other thing - I have never heard a ground go from being so quiet to being that noisy. To any stripeys reading this, that's not a compliment - I thought it was pathetic that they all sat on their hands in silence until the goals when they suddenly woke up. People say we're quiet at home, jesus, the West Stand is like a cauldron of passion compared to their entire ground (spotty ultras included).
Wednesday, Huddersfield, Brighton, Derby and Palace come to mind.
We had so many chances but weren't clinical enough, no way we deserved to lose that over the 90 mins but fair play to them, in the end Palace just had a bit more quality. Holloway beat Powell in the tactics department just as Dave Jones did last week.
Got to Norwood junction about 12ish went to go to a pub turned out to be a home pub, ended up being escorted to the Prince George in Thornton Heath. To be fair the police were good with us, had aaugh and wasn being unreasonable at all. It was good in the Prince George, quite a few Charlton in there, we were all having a drink jumping about and singing.
Mental scenes when we scored, I honestly thought we'd go on to win the game.
God knows how we didn't win that, it just all fell apart at the end again.
Thought the smashing of cars in the street was out of order but thought our support was quality again today.
Not comfortable with all this talk of "Powell should have done this" or "we went wrong there" - at the end of the day, we got beat by a team who is much stronger than us, as the league table shows. Nothing 'wrong' with that.
Then we sat back and got outplayed (again)
Oh and Solly made Zaha look ordinary.
Too many "in CP we trust" for my liking............they said that about the captain of the Titanic and looked what happened there !
strikers generally win games & we had more strikers on the bench than in the starting 11 - you don't win too many games that way
sod 4-5-1 or 4-1-4-1 or 4-3-3......... this is football & not netball - all 11 men can run anywhere at any time, so just get the ball to the men furthest forward more often.
football is an easy game - all you have to do is score more goals than the opposition. That being the case why stop at 1 after 20 mins when you have another 70 mins to play. Score 3 goals in a game and the chances of losing are fairly small.
CP may be "learning" as a manager, but he doesn;t seem to be learning fast enough. I don't want my club to be a learning ground for incompetent managers, so a meassage to CP -either learn fast or ship out and go learn your trade elsewhere.