I think we are right in the mix for a relegation spot. My main reasons are our inability to create chances coupled with the other team's now all starting to look better than us. Bournemouth are creating chances as are Southampton (thankfully Che Adams keeps missing them)
Can we avoid the drop? What needs to happen? Move the ball quicker - our play is too ponderous. Get more players forward - our full backs too often don't get forward or and we have the ball in our own half and the only players to pass to are in our own half. Start games more quickly - we are often too passive and it takes us to concede a goal before we go looking to score.
Get McCarthur up to speed asap. Providing he is at the level he was before he got injured he can help Doucoure win more of the ball to start counter attacks.
Keep working on the final pass and our finishing - both have not been great at times this season.
We also need to have everyone fit and ready to go in April when we are playing the teams around us and have best chance of picking up points.

I agree. I still think we can get 8 points out of the next 6 games so as to reach the 10 I suggested we'd get at the beginning of this tough run.

Hmmmm, hope you are right, i think a couple of goals from open play might be a start.

As I wrote on the Man Utd match thread, trying to play stylish possession based football is all very commendable, but you need the right players to do it. This team has not got enough of them to do it successfully. PV may have taken the job on the basis that he change the style of football, but this disregards the lack of adequate recruitment of such players needed. A good manager works with what he is given. Roy did so for 4 years with almost no backing in the transfer market. After only a week, Dyche has turned a disorganised collection of players at Everton into a team that beat the previously almost unstoppable league leaders. He previously took Burnley into Europe. Many sneer at the style these type of managers employ, but it’s pragmatic and gets results even if not pretty.

I think PV is too influenced by his time at Man City, where they do have the quality of players to play the expansive passing style of football. Trying to impose that on the squad at Palace is just not working often enough. Sure, there is the odd game when it comes together, but overall results show it’s not sufficient. Swansea tried and ultimately failed to use this approach to stay in the Premier. FDB had similar ideas and look how that turned out.

Turning the clock way back, Malcolm Allison had grand ideas of expansive football being played by Palace. I remember he even wanted to widen the pitch at Selhurst to give more room for passing down the wings. He was a highly regarded coach that also coincidentally had spent a successful spell at Man City. It was all a fine and commendable ambition, but again didn’t match the capabilities of the players at his disposal. Sure there were exciting times when it occasionally all came together, such as the FA Cup run in 1976, but ultimately what Allison achieved were successive relegations from the First Division/Premier to the Third Division/League One. He then failed two years in a row to get promoted back out of the third tier. Now I know this was back in the 1970s and many will say it’s ancient history. But as the saying goes ‘those who fail to study history are doomed to repeat it’ and if the current board and management continue the way they are it could all happen over again.