Not sure about the SP situation. At the end of the day he is a business man and I would have thought the right money talks.

I am surprised nobody has made a proper offer for Palace. All the ingredients are there to create something big. The right person or consortium could pick up an established team for a lot less than one of the big clubs. From a business point of view I buy old houses renovate and create a new product worth more in a different market. That makes the most sense to me. It seems the best option for someone looking to get into the premier league too. Chelsea and City weren’t that big a couple of decades ago now nobody can think of them as anything other than a big club.
For Palace the Exposure is already there with broadcasting etc. Just surprising that more investors haven’t bought looked at us.

A few years ago we had the oldest squad in the PL. The club have addressed that. I would say the club is now in another transitional phase. Up until Vieira's appointment a lot of what the club did seemed to be short-termism, but with the investment in young players and the academy that is seemingly the direction the club have chosen to take. The problem with this strategy is it might not deliver short-term results, especially when you appoint a manager with an aversion to using young players. In the long-term it could be hugely beneficial to the club if they can start producing either first-team players or players who can be sold to other clubs. Brighton had a plan, stuck to it and now it is paying dividends. Other clubs like Everton came unstuck for short-termism.

As fans of course we always want immediate results and without a real insight as to the club's long-term strategy that won't change, but I don't see us ever being a club where we'll progress through the arrival of a wealthy benefactor and I'm ok with that. That's my tuppence anyway.

Lack of finance seems an obvious starting point, weak scouting another, but I'd like to concentrate on lack of forward planning, and offer an obvious example that illustrates how we wing it from day to day not thinking about what the future holds.
During the 2021/22 season, PV's first in charge, we had a formidable and combative midfield trio of McArthur, Kouyate, and loanee Gallagher. As a blend it worked and the ideal of that combination should have been used as the template for future team building efforts. Instead, all three are gone the following season through a mixture of departure and injury, detail of which known to the board prior to the new season starting - and what do we do to cover three vital positions? Bring in ONE PLAYER of the ability to play in the position, namely Doucoure.
January window arrives and it's realised that reinforcement is needed, and Ahamada is signed, he rarely gets a game and Hughes is dusted off.
It's pathetic. Things the fans can see the board is oblivious to, and if it's a case of money improve the scouting so good players can be found at bargain prices. You know, like Brighton do.
There's no need to add that we lose our talisman and do not replace with another player for that position, thinking that maybe a midfielder can fill in or a forward converted. Pathetic.
Can it be any surprise we are where we are? Pieces of the whole being chipped away and not replaced can only lead to one outcome, and here we are.

Edited by southnorwoodhill (29 Dec 2023 9.49am)

Good take on things in general.

Parish seems to do things in ‘ cycles ‘ The re-appointment of Hodgson indicated to me that this was going to be a fallow season with survival once again the only realistic target. In other words the club is playing for time. I’ve said it before, but the talk of a push to a top ten finish this season was based upon what exactly given the strength in depth of the squad ?

To me that is short termism, and it’s been derailed by events such as Zaha’s 11th hour departure and the number of injuries we have had.

My expectation was/is that at the end of the season the club will have identified and appointed a manager that can take the club forward over the next 3-4 years. And that manager will receive enough financial backing to enable that to happen in tandem with ongoing development of players from the Academy.

However, in our current predicament, Parish may not have the time he was hoping for in terms of the next manager. Defeat and even a draw tomorrow would leave Hodgson on the brink. And then it’s possible Parish will have to appoint someone that’s chief attraction is their immediate availability.

If ever a season has been wasted, it’s this one.

Old, Ungifted and White

The degree of progress depends upon what period of time you are measuring .
If you started supporting Palace around the time of the last promotion then there’s no great evidence of dramatic progress.
If, like me, you supported Palace from their days in the old third division the progress has been dramatic.
Now there are frequent sell out crowds of c 26,000 as opposed to the c 10,000 I grew up with.
No more quagmire training training pitches of the old days at Mitcham, but a brand new state of the art training complex.
From the yo yo days of a season or two in the top division before dropping down , we have managed an unbroken run in excess of 10 years.
All well and good, but where to now?

This is the conundrum.

There was optimism about a push for the top 10 season, but then you examine the detail.
Possibly our greatest player left in the summer and was not replaced.
The club elected to reappoint Hodgson which was ever going to be a short term appointment and did not smack of long term planning.
Were we hoping to bide our time for a year before our real target could be appointed next summer?
Or was it just evidence of kicking the can down the road for a year?
Behind the scenes there is no evidence of the complicated ownership structure emerging any clearer.
Two of our major investors have supposedly wanted out for a few years and were involved in a bid to buy Chelsea a few months ago.
Therefore at the executive level of the club, and at team manager level, there remains a significant amount of uncertainty.
This is not a recipe for an organisation to make significant, or indeed any, progress.

I think deep down this sums up my gut instinct on the matter. We're always acting like it's a bit of a shock we're still here so everything seems to be from game to game - lurching from one injury crisis to another.