Again Den I respect your point of view.

I just don't think any of it is that easy to get right and within the constraints of FFP for Palace. We sell next to nobody.We have a stadium that's in need of an upgrade or 6 and the squad depth I don't think is as bad as its made out. Franca hasn't been given a good chance, Holding is on the injury list and Henderson ....I agree wasn't worth £20 mill and agreed that was a bad use of money.

The other lads need to be given some time to play when we aren't 3-0 down or 5 mins from the end.

I hope we will be ok this season and if we are, then I expect the team once we don't have all the players injured. It will look not as bad.

I think that's part of the problem.

I totally get that you don't want to lose your best players, and in an ideal world we would build a team around them.

Only we can't afford to. And there is no conveyor belt of young players coming through.

So you might have to sell one in order to fund the purchase of another two. I know that's not as easy as it sounds but at the moment we aren't trying either of those options.

Old, Ungifted and White

I must have been writing this as you were posting yours and it seems we agree.

I have been following the comments on this site for a number of years but never registered until now. I, like many others out there, are extremely angry about the negativity that surrounds our club. However very few are looking at the whole picture. I have gone to extreme lengths over the last four or five seasons to collect statistics regarding effectiveness of each player, the management team and the ownership of the club. Even my wife keeps telling me you get what you pay for. I am afraid on this occasion she is not far from the truth. I am not talking about the price of players but the management and coaching staff. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but you can make a great player out of a good player. We have some good young talent in our academy now and did long before our academy became a first class establishment. What have we done with it? With the exception of one or two we have left it to rot in the reserves until the contracts ran out.
When money is short you have to use the assets that you have. I attended the game in which our young talent played Valencia in the PL International Cup Semi Final. There was so much good football played, especially early on but most of our team have never seen the bench for the 1st team let alone get on the pitch. When we loan players out it is to EFL Lge 1 or 2 or even non-league. These players need to stretch themselves in order to get better not go somewhere they are “comfortable”.
In the semi-final they clearly faded which suggests that they are not getting the stamina training they need and recurring injuries in the 1st team suggest they are not warming up (and down) properly and possibly not getting the correct medical checks or even dietary requirements. We need a shake up and it is worth spending a bit extra on a quality coaching team instead of relying on a team that have “been around for a long time”. Good coaches will save us a fortune on players and may even make us a few bob in player sales.
Don’t blame the owners they are keeping the club financially healthier than most other clubs.
Let me know if you agree.

It just takes one or two bad windows to drag a club downward. Like Parish said, if you're staying still, you're falling behind.

I think what we're missing most right now is 1-2 strong veteran leaders, who keep everyone in line, and who have been through some wars in the past. Our current squad is so lightweight, with really no leaders. It's a squad of mostly "Type B" personalities.

Signing Olise, Eze, Doucoure, and Guehi was a masterstroke by the club, but after that, I think they went too far in the direction of prospective gambling on young players (Franca, Ahamada, you can even say Munoz and Wharton, although I think they were both good signings) when they should have been signing a couple older more established players to balance things out. Lerma is an example of a player we could use more of. He's older and has no resell value, but he has been very valuable on the pitch this season.

Also, I have no idea what is going on with our goalkeepers, but that has turned into a bizarre and expensive mistake.

So I guess in general, since we hit the lottery on Eze, Olise, Doucoure, and Guehi, we got complacent and thought we could do no wrong.

Edited by Wilbraham413 (06 Feb 2024 11.42pm)

2017 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Middlesboro
2018 Jan. (Sako) Palace 1 - 0 Burnley
2019 May (Batshuayi, Batshuayi, OG, Van Aanholt, Townsend) Palace 5 - 3 Bournemouth
2020 Feb. (Van Aanholt) Palace 1 - 0 Newcastle

You raise some interesting points, not least of which questions the quality of coaching in the Academy. It's something I have been considering too. There's little point in the structure attracting talent if that talent isn't being developed properly. The actual teams at U18 and U21 are very competitive and get good results. But, with the exception of Ozoh, we aren't seeing a path to the first team for anyone else. Having invested so heavily in the Academy, I am sure ( ok I hope ) that it's performance is reviewed. That's in terms of developing individuals through to the first team, and the sale of players that aren't going to make that standard but have enough about them to generate a fee.

I don't agree with your point about where Palace lend to. The players end up playing at a level that they are deemed capable of. Only Rak-Sakyi has attracted the attention of Championship clubs having proved himself at L1 level. Those players clearly aren't in a ' comfort zone ' as none of them progress past it !

Recent injuries have brought the medical team into sharp focus, understandably, but I very much doubt that they are anything but professional. There seems to be a disconnect between the advice they give and how it is received by the manager.

Old, Ungifted and White

I got one would not criticise Steve Parish.
He is Palace through and through and a bloody good Businessman.
He does what is best for us within the confines of the size of Club that we are.
Has he made mistakes - probably, on purpose - never.
He will be hurting like the rest of us and he will sort things out.