I think you may be right. To be honest, if I put my rose-tinted Palace spectacles to one side, if I was Howe I would take the club I truly loved up this year and then leave for a considerably better opportunity than ours in the summer. I have little doubt that a better-funded, "bigger" team will come calling if he has further success over the balance of this season. And really, if he's been offered the Palace job already but spent Saturday managing Bournemouth while we were simultaneously going out of the FA Cup, that tells me all I need to know about which way he's leaning.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

I once got offered the position of Senior Recreation attendant (Park keeper) while still a mere Recreation attendant at Bromley council.
I spent the whole weekend thinking about it.
I took the job after much soul searching and spouting my love of my former position.

In the woods there grew a tree. And a fine fine tree was he.

It's happened to us enough times, I'm used to it. It's football. They pay their dues then move on to bigger and better things.

There are exceptions of course and if Howe is one of them, good luck to him. I just hope he knows his own mind very well because if he takes this job he's going to have to give it everything he's got or it'll be more tears all round.

"You can feel the stadium jumping. The stadium is actually physically moving up and down"
FA Cup MOTD 24/4/16

I'm like a kid on Christmas Eve when it comes to speculation. I explode with excitement and nonsensical bollocks.

Twitter!

[Tweet Link]

Justin Bieber: the singing amoeba

I don't honestly think the real issue here is whether he can tear himself away from Bournemouth. Obviously he's got a massive loyalty but he also seems very ambitious and intelligent, and he must be aware that everyone has him down as the 'next big thing' as far as management is concerned. He's had other offers, and by this point is must be a question not of whether he'll leave but when, and where he'll go.

I think the bigger issue for him is assessing the level of risk involved here. If, lord forbid, he came to Palace and things didn't go so well for the remainder of the season, then he'd really have tarnished his golden record. Nobody had any expectations of him at Bournemouth and he's worked wonders, but now he's got to work out whether he thinks he can do the same thing at Palace, two leagues higher (from where Bournemouth were, obviously not where they are now), and picking things up halfway through the season, mid-transfer window.

The answer to that in my mind is that he definitely can - we've got a good bunch of players who were unlucky in my mind for a long time at the beginning of the season and have only recently started putting in really poor performances. Our position in the table doesn't reflect the team, it just reflects the way we've been playing and a lack of stability. What I'm basically saying is that he's probably spending this weekend getting to know a bit about the players we have at Palace, and working out what he'd do and where he thinks he could take us. I have him down as a guy who knows the game inside out so I think we need to give him a bit more credit. Love for Dorset hasn't got Bournemouth where they are! It's a gamble for him but I think it would pay off. He doesn't need to come to Palace now, he's got decades of management ahead of him and he's got a lot more to lose than he has to gain. Hence the difficult decision.

Edited by RJ19 (09 Jan 2011 2.02am)

Im praying we get Howe but my main concern is how long its taking to get someone in, I know you cant just panic and put any old manager in charge but nearly half of the transfer window has gone now and we pretty much need a new defence.
Pack your suitcase Eddie and get the f*** down to Beckenham NOW. Thank you.