October 20 2003

Crystal Palace

Refreshed and invigorated after a sojourn in Turkey (but not, he hastens to add, to gatecrash the Euro 04 confrontation in Istanbul), Jamesey drags himself back to the keyboard

A right Millers Tale it turned out to be against Rotherham this afternoon (Oct 18). Any of you who watched the recent TV series based on Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales masterpieces will know that the Millers Tale, one of Geoff's bawdiest, involved lust, lies, deception, cuckoldry, red-hot pokers, bare bums and flatulence - and that's just for starters.

If only the Eagles' performance today had been as remotely interesting as that, I might even have enjoyed myself. Instead we got the all-too-familiar Palace scenario of lethargy, inaccurate passing, missed chances and the general malaise of underachievement which all seem to be par for the course this season.

Letting listless and poor Derby County back into the game for a draw last Tuesday (Oct 14) was bad enough but, after totally dominating the match, to end up with the same scoreline against the Millers, is hard to swallow.

How many corners and free kicks did we squander? Back in the late 80s and early 90s, we were feared as dead ball experts, often lethal at corners and free kicks. But now, clueless and gormless are the words that spring to mind.

On Sept 16, we played Bradford City. They had never won at Selhurst. They have now! And when I realised that Rotherham had yet to win away this season, I expected the worst, especially after they took the lead.

We are a third of the way through the football season, and I have only seen Palace win once at home (Aug 16. Watford. 1-0). Unfortunately I missed our only other home win against Cardiff City (Oct 4), although to be fair all my friends where I sit say we looked pretty good.

But unless we can beat lowly teams like Rotherham at home, we might as well forget about ending up in the top half of the table, never mind the play-off zone.

Sorry to be so downbeat, but I feel angry at the way a talented and costly squad of players can perform so badly. Something is seriously wrong somewhere and I am not going to point the finger..

If we play like that against Ipswich Town next Tuesday (Oct 21), we could be on the end of a right pasting...hope to eat these words at 10 'o' clock on Tuesday night.

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