I have just read that we have failed to score in 8 of our 18 games this season.
This means that that in nearly half of our games we have had no chance of winning with a goalless draw the best outcome achievable.
Since we rarely keep a clean sheet , even that is a tall order.
It reinforces the need to address this area through more penetrating play and /or new signings.
Ayew, Eze and Olise will not get the necessary goals, Vieira does not seem to have confidence in Edouard and Mateta.
This means (as usual) we are overly reliant on Zaha, but this is a risky game as he is not a great goal scorer even if he is a great player.

No chance, haven't you heard ? our ills, according to SP, are all going to be solved by a couple of loans, lol.

We effectively play without a midfield so no defensive cover and no service to front line. For some reason last summer Palace signed a bunch of players but ignored the midfield, except the Koyate out Decoure in. Why do one or two of the U21 or Academy midfield players not get a chance..has worked in the past and it works for other clubs

Its much less likely than people think for academy players to make it to elite level only 0.5% of 16 years olds actually go on to make elite level players according to statistics!

Not sure it matters who PV selects as whoever it is we still won’t play with a balanced midfield where they support the defence, fight / win it in the middle and supply our attack. It’s chaotic in the middle with square pegs in round holes :-( We played the worst Chelsea team in many a year where most premiership teams other than us would have beat them today :-(

I think for us, at least... we were very good at finding young talent, producing or luring in. But, times have changed and the standard now is much higher.

In my time, Dyer was the first and he was a young lad we snapped up. Armstrong, too.
Producing Ndah, Boxall, Watson, the overly hyped Williams, we've always loved an underdog youth player - taking in Morrison from spurs and giving them a chance as an example.

It's gone cold of late, but this is the thing, we are in the prem now, producing talent for the championship is one thing, producing talent to walk straight into the prem... it's rare - they need time to learn the trade and blood and that's often lower leagues.

That's why I would rather us use the prem money for the academy, and use that for our squad and a yo yo team. I haven't enjoyed this decade more than the last...

This was once a quality forum....