I’ve been a Palace supporter for over 50 years and although I rarely find time to attend matches these days, I follow the club’s activities very closely and am fully committed to seeing the club becoming the best it possibly can be.

So my numerous thoughts and concerns about the club can be summed up by the title of this thread. Unlike some posters I respect what Steve Parish and co have done for the club and are hopefully still planning to do. However, if the club has a clear strategy, I’m not aware of them having shared it with us fans and I think it would be beneficial if they were to do so.

For me, a strategy has to be driven by a compelling vision and I think we can see elements of it in some of the things the club are doing. For example, I really like the slogan ‘South London and Proud’, as we should be aiming to ensure we are THE top team in South London, which I think is already the case but the key requirement is to ensure that we always will be and that means continually building the club and taking it forward. Over time one would hope that as the premier team in South London we will start to compete more evenly with our other Premier League rivals within London.

Distilling this strategy down to some key points, I’d like to suggest the following:

Mission Statement:

To become an established top-ten Premier League team and one of the top teams in London.

Striving to achieve such a mission should also make it possible for us to aspire to play in the European competitions but there is much to do before that becomes a realistic prospect.

Medium-Long term Goals:

To have a top-quality stadium with a minimum 35,000 seating capacity.

Parish said recently that now we have achieved Category 1 status for our Academy and the related building project will soon be completed, the Club will turn its attention to developing the ground. This must happen as quickly as possible and in an ideal world I think we’d be better off moving to the Crystal Palace park and building an even more impressive stadium but that is probably one for the future.

To have one of the top Football Academies in the country.

To his credit Parish has recognised the importance of building this facility and achieving Category 1 status was a big step forward. The challenge now is to build the reputation of the Academy and that will require them producing some top, young talent that can feed through into the senior team.

To attract additional major investment through new owners.

In order to achieve the necessary ground improvements and investment in the team, we desperately need to attract new owners who will invest in the potential of the club. We have a large chunk of South London and the South East as our catchment area and that means a decent-sized fan base and potentially a great pool of young talent to feed into our Academy. Parish needs to sell this vision to owners who want to exploit this potential.

Short-term Goals:

To maintain our Premier League status.

This is essential as it is an obvious source of revenue and unlike some posters, I do not think there is any benefit in being relegated to the Championship with a view to rebuilding, even if it means playing unattractive football in the short-term, in order to survive.

I personally think that Roy Hodgson has done a pretty good job under difficult circumstances and I’d like to see him working to ensure our survival this season and then I think he should retire with full credit.

That means I think that Parish needs to start lining up a new Manager to take over during the summer break, so that he can oversee the rebuilding of the team. Hopefully Parish has already had appropriate discussions with Roy and is already having some tentative conversations with suitable contenders, such as Eddie Howe.

To rebuild the First team squad.

With an ageing squad and so many players soon to be out of contract, the next 12 months is going to be a critical period for the club.

We should see the departure of Wickham, Benteke and Sakho as quickly as possible.

I think we urgently need to add the following:

• a creative midfielder to boost our attacking threat in the Cabaye or Ross Barkley mould
• a young defensive midfielder who can start to replace Macca or Luka
• a proper right winger to replace Townsend
• a young centre back to start to replace Dann or Cahill

Our long-standing need for a reliable striker naturally remains important, although we may have an answer there with Mateta but that remains to be seen. I’m also not sure whether Batshuyai has a future with us or not, as he hasn’t had much of a chance this season.

Anyway, I think as a Club we have some major challenges ahead and I hope that Parish sees them as part of a coherent strategy and I’d like to hear more from him about how he sees these things coming together. I appreciate it is difficult for him to be open about some of these matters but I think it would be good to share a vision and get us all excited about what we’re trying to do.

I think we have already achieved the goals of being an established top flight club and South London's top club (that was achieved years ago!!) - but i do agree we need the sort out the ground and have a clear vision for the future, especially getting a young manager who can build a legacy. Our next step would be to qualify for Europe and winning the odd cup now and again. Nice dream!!!

Good post and on the positive side it looks like we are trying to cover a lot of the issues. Ferguson, Eze, and Metata have all come , would love to see us get in a decent young centre back and centre midfield over the summer.
I’ve said on the love Roy thread if we are to make the jump to established Premier league club then we need to improving the infrastructure, plans are there for the ground and we already have the academy. Improving the grounds puts £20-30m on the turnover from tickets and hospitality and puts us closer in terms of income to Newcastle, West Ham and Southampton. It doesn’t guarantee success if we increase the ground 35,0000 and get relegated then we will have 10,000 to 15,000 empty seats but if we can stay up and start establishing a bigger fan base then that will help us bridge the gap.
The academy I think is equally important, we are sitting on goldmine in south London for talent, the concrete Catalonia , we probably have missed talent that has gone to other category 1 academies but if we can tap into that and get parents of talented kids wanting to send them to Palace because they will get their chance that would feed into the ‘ South London and proud’ identity.

One supporter of hacking argued that without it "you will do away with the courage and pluck of the game, and I will be bound to bring over a lot of Frenchmen who would beat you with a week's practice -Blackheath secretary at first meeting of the F.A

Thank you Willo. Coming from you it's a great compliment.

I agree that much of what I've said may be regarded as quite obvious but I was trying to pull together a series of matters under the banner of a strategy. It would be good to know that the Board saw these 'obvious' matters in such a context. I can but hope that they will share their thoughts on the Club's strategy.

I honestly don't think that we are being run in a strategic way; after 8 years in the Prem we should have made more of an impact than just surviving above the relegation zone. And I don't see any evidence of strategy to change this. I also question the strategy of sinking all our money into one giant new flashy stand (if we ever start work) when it's obvious that three sides of our ground are no longer fit for purpose...

It is hard to acknowledge that Brighton are far superior than us in terms of infrastructure.They have a modern stadium and a state-of-the art training complex at Lancing.

The Chief Exec, Paul Barber and the Technical Director Dan Ashworth have both held prominent positions at the FA.

Furthermore the football they play is far more entertaining to watch than the total dross we have served up in recent times.

Admittedly we have finished above them in recent seasons and long may this continue!

Edited by Willo (02 Feb 2021 11.30am)