You talk complete rubbish. If we had a Championship squad we'd be in the Championship wouldn't we. Pulis was/is a chancer. Allardyce probably has more professionalism and commitment to a job but both are out for No.1 with little regard for their employers or the business model's future success.
Wants to retire then rocks up at Everton? Do me a favour!
Wants his bonus early to help his son then walks out? Do me a favour!
Both cared only about themselves. In this day and age its not unusual but be honest about it ffs

Thanks all for continuing this interesting discussion.

I'm not advocating a strict policy of only signing senior players, although we could debate whether that might actually be a good idea. I was simply arguing against the idea of a preference for younger ones where that preference comes from resale value rather than whether they are part of the very strongest 11 we can arrange right now.

The really notable thing is that a few of you feel we should have a 'transfer strategy'. I question that such a thing can actually exist. We aren't Man City. We will always need to be flexible and responsive in the short term to what the team needs right now, because that only has to go wrong a tiny bit and the whole thing crumbles. Our experience in this league has shown that the greatest need is often unexpected until the time, and can't really be planned for two or three years in advance.

Apart from the mad trolley dash straight after promotion the club has actually done a good job of targeted signings to strengthen the team where it was weakest at the time. That is the only 'strategy' worth worrying about as far as I can see. Always has been and always will be.

If the solution to today's problem happens to be a kid in our youth team then that's great, and the club have put a massive effort in to the academy to increase the chances of that happening, but the idea that instead of starting out by saying 'We need a new left back, who is the best one we can get for the budget' we would sit there and say 'Never mind what the team needs, the squad doesn't have enough resale value so let's go and get the best player we can who is under 20' is dangerously overthinking it. This resale value idea has taken grip to such an extent that as I said in an earlier post, any player under 20 has an artificially high value now anyway. The whole of Western Europe is scouring every part of Africa, Eastern Europe and wherever else looking for players now. There is no untapped market. We aren't failing to think hard enough about it, it's just not the great idea it might once have been, and that's without the fact that you'll always end up with far more misses than hits.

As has been correctly pointed out, we start every year knowing we are one of 12 to 14 sides who might end up in the bottom three, and the margins are too tight to take a single liberty. The idea that we might sign anyone other than the best available option to give the team what it needs right now is almost negligence. If we hadn't signed Dann, Puncheon, Cabeye, McArthur, Tompkins, PVA, Sakho and even Benteke then we'd have gone down.

You really are a dumb one.

Shows how little you really know about the game and the people in it.

So you think because you have a Championship squad you must automatically be in championship yeah ok thats how it works is it no otherwise why are teams with Premier league squads relegated idiot.

Look up Pullis Premier League record as a manager he has never been a big spender and always had solid record so the whole "chancer" not sure how you came up with that same with making out both destroy clubs far from it.

Big Sam left and was out of work for almost 6 months before Everton signed him, the guy could of easily jumped back into another job straight after leaving Palace but he didn't want to.

Both really walked because of SP and no funds that is the truth and can't blame them for that.

Everybody cares about no1 you are in a fantasy land if you think otherwise it's a job.

I have no desire to engage in a discussion regarding the reasons for the departures of Pulis and Allardyce.

All I would add is that it would be perhaps a tad churlish not to give them some credit for saving us from the dreaded drop.

When Allardyce arrived we were 17th after 17 games with just 15 pts on the board and we finished in 14th place.It certainly wasn't looking good for us after that horrific 0-4 defeat to Sunderland !
When Pulis arrived we were 19th after 12 games with just 7 pts on the board and we survived finishing a verty creditable 11th so mission accomplished.

Hodgson of course performed miracles in keeping us up last season after that dastardly start so credit to him as well.

I wonder how many times we've all gone over this in the past.

You posted that "trying to con Parish out of a bonus he did not deserve" which isn't true as he did deserve it as he saved us from the relegation that everyone of us thought was going to happen. If you had posted that he tried to take a bonus that he wasn't contractually entitled to" it would have been more truthful.

Plus Pulis was within weeks of being able to receive the contractual bonus legitimately and it was a matter that probably could and should have been sorted out amicably with a bit more adult behaviour on both sides.

Cue the "a court found in our favour" and "Parish showed no one pushes Palace around" comments.
A legal process allowed us to pay a pittance to all those local traders who'd done business, in good faith, with CPFC2000; just because the law allows it doesn't always make it something to be proud of.