Frankly,if we are to stay in the Premiership,we should urgently look to appoint Sam or Roy,to guarantee survival.
Otherwise,stay with Mr.Nice Guy PV,who is slowly but surely leading us to the Championship.

I did wow how prolific.

Patrick A - great post.
It boils down to PV needing to get the best out of what he has got instead of taking us down trying to play the beautiful game.
Adapting and being pro-active are what he needs to be right now but he continues to bang the same drum and we keep losing.
Be sure, losing is a mentality when it keeps happening and I am worried.
Luka may not be anyone's idea of what we need right now but he could protect the back 4 leaving Doucoure to go forward a bit more.
Maybe with the new players arriving that might not now be needed but it would have been a good idea over the last ten games or so.
He is a square peg/round hole Manager - never a good thing!

De Boer was hardly through the door when he announced his intention to play 532 despite not knowing his players nor whether they were capable of playing the formation.
He alienated the squad , would not adapt, and his reign was short lived.

Similarly Vieira joined and ,before working with the players, immediately announced an intention to ply 433 with ‘one number 6 and two number 8s’ in midfield.
Fortunately we had Gallagher, McArthur and Kouyate who had the right skill set to make the formation work and we played effective and eye catching football.
All looked very promising.
However, this season we haven’t had those three players and I would contend that only Doucoure is comfortable in the ‘one number 6 and two number8’s’ formation.
Schlupp, Eze, Olise, Hughes and Luka have all been tried in the formation and none have looked comfortable.
Our midfield formation this season has neither protected our back four nor provided a good service to our forwards.
The tendency has been to blame the players as not good enough, but it could equally be argued that they don’t suit the roles they are being asked to perform.
Hughes and Luka don’t have the energy and arguably need to play in a 4 or 5 man midfield.
Schlupp and Ayew have physical qualities, but ultimately are not authentic midfield players in their reading of the game.
Eze and Olise have bags of natural talent , but their work off the ball mean they are not suitable to play the number 8 roles.
Maybe the two new additions and the hopeful return of McArthur will mean that we can get the midfield formation to work again.
Nonetheless, it’s difficult to understand why we’ve played the first half of the season with players playing in roles that they struggle with.
Good management is about making the most of available resources and this surely entails playing players in their most effective positions rather than being wedded to a particular tactical formation.

Couldn’t have put it any better. Totally agree with your comments on PV’s team this season and his inability to adapt to a playing style to suit the players we now have? Let’s hope the two new additions can make the difference, otherwise we will go down :-(

I don’t get this obsession with Shaun Derry. The very epitome of a one trick pony style of management. He’s failed at two lower league clubs. His approach to player management may have been effective at junior level at Palace, but it’s a different scenario at first team level. The Sergeant Major methodology doesn’t work there.

Anybody on here played on his team in the Robert Eaton games ?