But yet so many on here wanted Richards at right-back ahead of Clyne and Ward, so if Roy was wrong to pick Richards there last night, how many of them will now say they were wrong to complain previously? Not many.

And who would you have picked in the centre of midfield ahead of Richards, given the injury to Docoure?

Schlupp is a winger. That is his preferred position. He can play in the middle or at left back, but he is a winger. If Olise, or even Rak-Sakhi had been fit, perhaps Sch;lupp would have played less, but that's not how it was.

He played Hughes there when Eze was injured. We don't have anyone else able to play there. If Roy had played a system with three defensive midfielders instead, everyone would be moaning about that.

You're right, it's not complicated. We just need to look at the circumstances as they are in real life.

I promise I won't do that awful 'If you read what I actually said, and what you actually said' thing, but even if you were talking in general terms, the idea that Palace 'should' establish dominant control in a premier league game against a team fighting for their lives remains, to me, symptomatic of misplaced entitlement.

I'm amazed by how many posts on here are of the 'Sheffield Utd are s***, so the win means less' tone.

Christ, they played well, came back from behind twice (including one terribly unlucky deflection) to win and all some people can talk about is that Palace 'should' be winning.

Edited by TheBigToePunt (31 Jan 2024 1.45pm)

Well then Roy was just as culpable as those mistaken fans as,unlike the fans, he had control over the selection and elected to play Richards ahead of Clyne at right back.

It's some years since Schlupp has been able to make a contribution as a winger in the forward line.
Age and lack of fitness have taken their toll and we rarely see those bursts these days.

Hughes and Lerma have played their whole careers in midfield and in the last few seasons even Schlupp has shown he can do a job there. There are also Riedewald, Ahamada and Ozoh.
I'm not suggesting it's an ideal choice, but at least they can play in midfield, which Richards is patently not cut out to do.

Even truly great managers like Pep and Ancelotti make selection mistakes, but when it's suggested an ordinary manager such as Roy makes an error it seems that some can't contemplate even that as a remote possibilty.

See, this is the problem where you have not read my original post, which you replied to, as you had a bone to pick and therefore misconstrued my anecdote and launched an attack on it.

That comment I overheard and alluded to was very much an in-game, real time assessment 'should' and I doubt just myself and the bloke next to me were the only ones thinking 'Of course we were asleep at the beginning and unluckily they got a goal in less than half a minute but they're not very good at all plus we have the quality to punish them for it'. It was nothing to do with sentiment, entitlement or ignorance of football. We were watching the match.

Beyond them taking advantage of our yet again snail-like start, where a RB was all at sea as of course, he is not a RB and our formation was bizarre, and a deflected shot from a counter they very rarely threatened nor looked capable of producing anything defenders of the quality we have should easily be able to cope with. Even for their second we watched them pass the ball around and lost individual battles as shock, we were half asleep and lacked any aggression whatsoever.

All our problems were of our own, or rather the manager's making yesterday. Playing players out of position (most notably RB), getting overly excited about the first equaliser leading to complacency (and bad fortune), starting games at a 'snail in the headlights' manner, then towards the end bizarre substitutions with tactics and formation all over the place and an invitation for a team we looked for all the world far superior to, in that game on the night, to have at us for 15-25mins.

We won in spite of a bit of bad luck and our manager yesterday, not because of him. The gulf in quality whilst we had Eze and Olise on the pitch was enormous and we may still have looked far superior with logical substitutions. They very rarely threatened with any sincerity beyond their goals and we could or probably should have had more yesterday. That was the game, as it panned out, on the night.

Now Zaha's got a bit of green grass ahead of him here... and finds Ambrose... not a bad effort!!!!

Thanks for posting that. For what it's worth, Clinton said on BBC 5 Live that it was only the fifth time.

I’m asking for Roy to organise the defence. To be on it from the start, & to not ball watch as we did for the last 15 minutes. Watch the highlights of the last 15 it’s pretty scary stuff.