It all started to go wrong when Parish started listening to that certain voice in his left ear, telling him who we should buy.

Three certain players and £80 million later, we're worse off than we were before, with seemingly no way out.

We could have and should have spent much more wisely.

Before anyone replies with words to the effect of "Hindsight is a wonderful thing", I've been saying this since before we bought Benteke.

I agree with your first comment that SP has done more good than bad but I don't agree that either selling Gayle or buying Benteke were bad mistakes

Never a truer word said. BFS was only after his bonus for keeping us up and it was HIS choice to leave NOT SP giving him the boot or not enough transfer funds. SP was as shocked as we were when BFS went into the office and handed his notice in. His decision to retire was because a very close friend had just died plus he was losing interest in football in general. He has said this many times since. Remember he has to pay our club a couple of million quid if he takes another managers appointment within two years of leaving us.
He bought in players that did the job for HIM and not a long term future and SP put up the money for them so why SPO gets all the flack for what has happened I just do not know. OK he made a few mistakes but is man enough to admit it and is in the process of putting things right. The striker situation was only partly his fault as he was digging out trying to get a good deal with Liverpool for Sakho who we all wanted back with Palace, this he did and the strikers he wanted to bring in either through agents being greedy or ones that opted against joining us. Benteke cost us a bomb and has not delivered this term and has got quite lazy and our other two strikers Ladapo and Wickham do not feature in the team. Having gone seven matches without even one goal is soul destroying to us all but lets get on with just supporting the lads in the hope that their confidence comes back and Roy can kick them into top gear and get them proud to wear a Palace shirt. We have seen dark times before and there will be more to come but lets look forward to better times and some goals in the near future.

Supported Palace for over 69 years since the age of 7 and have seen all the ups and downs and will probably see many more ups and downs before I go up to the big football club in the sky.

Player purchase is one neat and easy diagnosis. Save for the well-healed segment of this division, there are 13 teams between which you can barely pass a cigarette paper such is the fine margins that separate them. Thus, a Palace or Stoke side - if it were able to field a fully fit 1st XI each week - should finish 8th - 12th. The skill is to have at least one player standing by who is almost as good as the first XI to cope with rotation, suspension, injury etc.

The latter Pardew months saw a lot of fans get on his back. You simply can't convince them - even now - that it was anything but his fault... FOR EVERYTHING. I (partly) disagree. Our side was unbalanced by the Souare injury. While there was cover elsewhere, we had no appropriate LB substitute. Fryers could not cut it, so we had to field players out of position. In what should have been evenly matched games where we could have won by the odd goal we lost by the odd goal. This should not have happened had we sold Fryers and bought an upgrade that summer. It was a colossal error. January came; we got 2 left sided players thereby restoring the balance (as well as bolstering the CB); the results came; and Allardyce took the credit (would Pardew have been stuffed 4-0 at home by the bottom team???).

This time, same story; but its strikers. True, a better keeper, RB and (I can only dream) someone almost as good as Zaha would be nice. However, the coffers are only so deep. Nevertheless, could have bought a striker in the summer; should have bought; didn't learn.

Manager selection also has to play its part. I do appreciate the pool for us is small and not that good. If we can't persuade Dyche to leave Burnley for us that leaves us with the risk of inexperienced managers from the lower leagues or managers with no experience of English football - together with all the accompanying risk - or else a "safe pair of hands" currently kicking around since their last sacking. We chose the former.

True, I can see the dream. 3 times title winner in Holland followed by an ignominious sacking in Italy (that was not his fault?). It could have been great. Sadly: right manager; right place; wrong time. We are still reeling from the disturbance and our confidence is shot. Hence we have had to opt - once again - for the latter short term option.

On player buying fault is relatively easy to attribute. On management I think the task is harder. With Sam dumping us like he did, there was insufficient time to do the sort of due diligence clubs in our league do. Nevertheless, are we right to expect that - 5 seasons in - we should have a settled team and player management? Possibly.

However, I fear we may still be handicapped and haunted by our not too distant past. We are weighed down by our dilapidated infrastructure which diverts funds, ring-fences the international investment and hamstrings us under FFP rules; at the same time we are hell bent on running a tight fiscal ship and never fall into financial ruin again. Even if relegated. No team in this division - even the newly promoted ones - have these problems.

Transform the ground (but not into a soulless bowl!), upgrade the support facilities and vastly increase our corporate non-TV earnings while, at the same time, maintaining our top flight status means we can probably then lure and afford better players and managers. Meanwhile, we have to operate at a healthy profit with what we have while keeping fickle over-expectant fans on side.

Senior management is dead easy!

SP took 6 weeks to due come to a decision as to a new manager. We must hold the record! The rest as they say is history.

Bring back Brolin

The left back debacle happened for 2 reasons.

1. When we're waiting to do a big deal, which we could do a little earlier and end up paying the same, we, for some reason, can't do another one. And money isn't an excuse because after signing Benteke we would only be spending £10 mil net. We then spent more in January than we would've done in the first place.

Similar with Sakho and no striker and prepared to put up over £10 mil for a striker.

2. Parish and Pardew were too close so a left back wasn't raised, or wasn't needed in their collective view and non challenging relationship.

I do wonder what freedman was advising as the deadline was getting closer and we weren't making enough moves in getting a striker in.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (02 Oct 2017 1.19pm)

COYP