Club's mission statement: Stay up, Tread water, Pray.

A number of them have been loaned out recently to lower league teams.They haven't impressed whilst being there,so why would they been thrown into the first team?
We got Mitchell from Brentford when they disbanded their Academy. Our Academy has recently been upgraded and a few potential youngsters bought in, but it takes time for them to develope.

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.