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March 29 2024 5.33am

Does the Club have a clear strategy?

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View AERO's Profile AERO Flag 02 Feb 21 11.45am Send a Private Message to AERO Add AERO as a friend

Lewington ?

 

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View Willo's Profile Willo Flag South coast - west of Brighton. 02 Feb 21 11.55am Send a Private Message to Willo Add Willo as a friend

Originally posted by AERO

Agree but if looks likely they survive this season they will be in a good place to build for future .Yes we are playing catch up need the ground improvements done soon and appoint a forward thinking manager and once identified give him a five year deal and plan.We took a risk with Coppell and Suggest we do same with Lampard maybe working with Lemington.

We have got ourselves in the situation whereby we have got a "Dad's Army" squad with little or no resale value and coupled with a lack of investment could mean that the only way forward is to extend the contracts of aged players turning them into "Grandad's Army".

Any "Forward thinking manager" might not be attracted to our club for this reason,not forgetting the fact that we have a stadium in dire need of an upgrade and training facilities which don't match those at other PL clubs.

 

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View TheBigToePunt's Profile TheBigToePunt Flag 02 Feb 21 12.00pm Send a Private Message to TheBigToePunt Add TheBigToePunt as a friend

Parish has, fairly openly and consistently, outlined his long term strategy since promotion.

He has said many times that, though you might get lucky or unlucky with particular players or managers along the way, ultimately the team is only as good as the size of the club.

Parish' mission is to make the club bigger by having a top quality youth set up and expanding the ground. Our regular brushes with insolvency since the 90's had left both these key assets utterly devoid of investment. We had fallen miles behind not only the bigger clubs, but even smaller ones.

He sold half the club to the Americans in exchange for funding for both projects, on the understanding that it would make CPFC more valuable as an asset, with the Americans in particular being likely to cash that asset in. That is why they are here. Not to bankroll the team.

Parish has achieved almost everything he set out to do regarding the academy, and done an awful lot more than most of his predecessors since Noades regarding the ground. He updated fans last time out, and said that Sainsburys are holding out for silly money for a bit of land they own that we need. This will be resolved soon. Either Sainsburys agree a price, or CPFC ask Croydon Council to compulsory purchase it in the public interest so that the stand can be built, which all three parties know is exactly what will happen if Sainsbury's don't get sensible.

Once the stand goes up, it will fall to Parish to draw up a whole new plan for what will be something of a new age for a club almost unrecognisably better off than it was when this current strategy was drawn up.

That next strategy may involve at least the Americans selling their share at a profit (and fair enough if they do), and maybe even Parish selling up. Who knows? Personally I'd like him to stay, and focus on further ground redevelopments until we have maxed out the potential at Selhurst. It may be possible to get us up to about 45000 capacity if a new upper tier can be added to the Arthur Waite and Whitehorse Lane stands, and of all the chairmen we've had in my lifetime I can't think of one I'd trust to handle that project more than the current one, though of course he should sellup if he is certain that a new person could do it better or faster.


Edited by TheBigToePunt (02 Feb 2021 12.01pm)

Edited by TheBigToePunt (02 Feb 2021 12.02pm)

 

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View AERO's Profile AERO Flag 02 Feb 21 12.13pm Send a Private Message to AERO Add AERO as a friend

Good post and True .Us longtime older fans our impatient I guess Lol !!!

 

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View silvertop's Profile silvertop Flag Portishead 02 Feb 21 12.31pm Send a Private Message to silvertop Add silvertop as a friend

Originally posted by Willo

We have got ourselves in the situation whereby we have got a "Dad's Army" squad with little or no resale value and coupled with a lack of investment could mean that the only way forward is to extend the contracts of aged players turning them into "Grandad's Army".

Any "Forward thinking manager" might not be attracted to our club for this reason,not forgetting the fact that we have a stadium in dire need of an upgrade and training facilities which don't match those at other PL clubs.


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I doubt a new manager will care if he ground is a bit crap, especially given the decent acoustics and noise the crowds generate. Given the pitch is Prem class, that's as far as he need look. All he will care about is having a decent team, in the worlds best and most lucrative league, and having a good contract.

Training facilities, on the other hand... Are you sure we are that far behind? If we are, then this needs addressing. If it can be?

I seem to recall, some time ago, there being talk of very limited space to relocate senior training facilities to; and sellers demanding exorbitant sums where land was available due to demand pressure. We simply cant compete with developers building homes or student residential campuses etc. Given our urban setting, we will never have e.g. 7 pitches for each type of grass like Southampton.

One small area where I believe we need to advance and where we appear to have stood still is off-field injury and injury recovery. There has to be a reason beyond bad luck why we always seem to top the injury table. This impacts on performance, league position and thus income.

 

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View doombear's Profile doombear Flag Too far from Selhurst Park 02 Feb 21 1.04pm Send a Private Message to doombear Add doombear as a friend

Originally posted by AERO

Good post and True .Us longtime older fans our impatient I guess Lol !!!


I'll second that. We've been a long way behind because we started from a much lower base than the other clubs in the PL.

 

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View PatrickA's Profile PatrickA Flag London 02 Feb 21 1.41pm Send a Private Message to PatrickA Add PatrickA as a friend

Hodgson has said on a number of occasions. that he , Freedman and Parish are on ‘the same page’ when it comes to what the squad needs.
However, at the press conference yesterday when discussing the amount of players out of contact at the end of the season he said,
‘ I think it’s a problem for the club... there are some good players in that group who are out of contract ...you’ll be looking at a total rebuild if those out of contract don’t sign new deals.’

This doesn’t sound like being ‘on the same page.’
Either he’s not involved in the discussions, or the club are not at this stage following his recommendations as clearly he believes that some of them should be retained.
Freedman and Parish could be playing a game of poker, believing some of the out of contract players won’t have too many options and will be only too happy to sign in due course.
Or maybe a new manager is being contemplated who will have his own ideas as to whom he wishes to retain.

Of course another possibility is that there is no strategy, although you would hope that would not be the case!

 

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View silvertop's Profile silvertop Flag Portishead 02 Feb 21 1.59pm Send a Private Message to silvertop Add silvertop as a friend

Originally posted by doombear


I'll second that. We've been a long way behind because we started from a much lower base than the other clubs in the PL.

including many new promoted.

Take west ham for instance. Handed the Olympic stadium. What we would give...

 

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View AERO's Profile AERO Flag 02 Feb 21 2.03pm Send a Private Message to AERO Add AERO as a friend

The ground is obviously the major issue for many reasons .Revenue being the major one as most clubs certainly premiership and most championship clubs have new or more updated stadia .

 

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View mileend's Profile mileend Flag East London 02 Feb 21 2.47pm Send a Private Message to mileend Add mileend as a friend

Maybe Parish is happy to have all those out of contract players because he thinks it is likely he'll want a new manager next season and that is going to be an attractive proposition for a new boss to get the players they want in - or at least suit their system.

That always seems an issue at Palace where the core squad that get the results play only one way. Typically without the ball for most of the game.

There will be financial constraints but we are going to have a lot of wages freed up so we should be able to compete well for the out of contract players who are not at the very top level.

If Zaha goes then that will mean enough funds to pay some transfer fees.

If there is no manager available that fits the bill then I expect we will see some contract extensions come through and one more year for Hodgson and similar approach again.

 

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View AERO's Profile AERO Flag 02 Feb 21 4.47pm Send a Private Message to AERO Add AERO as a friend

Makes some sense, new manager ,new players brought in to his liking. No point getting players in and new manager not wanting them .ie Mayer

 

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View palace99's Profile palace99 Flag New Mills 02 Feb 21 5.00pm Send a Private Message to palace99 Add palace99 as a friend

Originally posted by Knightstar

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.

Great post - all very sensible.

May i add another medium term goal - to reduce the wage bill to c60 -65% of total revenue.
At present i think we are at c78%, which is the highest % in the premier league.
By having such a high wage bill it means the transfer budget is limited and also makes selling players very difficult as few clubs can afford to pay a similar level of wage (e.g. Benteke when WBA showed an interest, or why Meyer was never going to leave without his contract being paid up).

 

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