Like many others I travelled to the Emirates yesterday. A very impressive stadium but devoid of any atmosphere, more of a corporate entertainment venue than a football stadium. I hope Selhurst Park never turns into one of these places.

I went to the game more in hope than expectation, hoping we might grab a point but fully expecting to lose. A 3-0 defeat was my pre match prediction. As it turned out, a defeat by 3 goals was the outcome. What I didn’t anticipate was the complete first half capitulation that ensued. I thought we had moved on from those dark ‘Sunderland’ days.

So where do we go from here? Well let’s be honest, most of us, me included, back in September thought we would most likely be propping up the table at this point in January. But we’re not, we are very much alive and kicking, we have every chance of staying up and even after yesterday’s heavy defeat I am very happy to be in the position we are.

We still have much to do, don’t get me wrong but let’s not beat ourselves up on the back of one bad defeat in that last 12 games. We have much to be positive about. However, aside from player recruitment and the need to strengthen the squad of which much has already been written, we need to solve a few conundrums/dilemmas in the short term:

- we need to be consistent and play well for a full 90 mins, we can’t keep having a bad half and a good half which seems to be a pattern of late;
- we need to sort out our set piece defending, particularly from corners. It’s been poor for a few games now, not just yesterday;
- Wilf needs to channel his frustrations into his football, sitting on the turf waving his arms in the air like he’s just had his sweets nicked by the local bully doesn’t help the team. Getting up quickly, getting back onside and helping to win the ball back is what’s needed.

None if this is rocket science and Roy will be well aware of our frailties, let’s hope he can get the team back to winning ways soon and pick those 15 points that will probably keep us up.

Home wins against Newcastle, Brighton, Leicester and West Brom would put us well on track toward staying up.

Palace since 19 August 1972. Palace 1 (Tony Taylor) Liverpool 1 (Emlyn Hughes)

I don't share the same confidence.
I doubt if we will get anything at W.Ham in our next game .

W.Ham have only lost 1 of their last 6 Home PL games and these 6 games include beating Chelsea and drawing with Arsenal.They have only lost 1 of their last 9 PL games.

Indeed.

Despite such an excellent run we are still just 3 pts from safety and with all our injuries and our main striker having only scored 1 goal all season, we simply cannot hope to carry on with such a sequence of results with our current squad.Our only hope is to strengthen significantly and hope the players that are brought in perform to the required standard.Failures in the transfer market will lead to relegation.Sounds very negative but I am trying to be realistic.

Edited by Willo (21 Jan 2018 8.58pm)

As i said somewhere else, the start to our season will haunt us, however, sometimes its just fate and we could have lost those games regardless.

It's all hands on deck and focus on 38 points asap.

Next 3 games we have a huge window to get 9 points, however, it's palace.

We just have to be thankful we have a better manager than stoke and imho West Brom, Swansea and Watford, southampton. Signings will keep us up.

This was once a quality forum....