March 3 2001

Crystal Palace

The Holmesdale Online's Peter Guntrip gives his account of listening to today's match commentary on Palace Radio. It reveals some interesting insights into what's going on behind the scenes at the club.

After two games in Yorkshire with 1-0 defeats in both, Palace were looking to take some much needed points from Preston this afternoon. The Palace line up featured two new loan signings, Matthew Upson from Arsenal and Slovenian left-back Amir Karic. Both players had only been drafted in on Friday, and no chance to train with the rest of the squad.

Jamie Pollock, who was suspended for today's game, was Gary Taphouse's co-commentator on Palace Radio. He was certainly not shy in saying what he thought, as he constantly revealed to the listeners that he was not happy how the team was playing.

He said to Gary that Alan Smith's instructions were to kick the ball forward from the defence up the flanks, and let the forwards run on to it. It was evident that this tactic was not working today, as Preston comphresively beat Palace to every ball. Pollock said that he wasn't happy about this tactic being enforced, and prefered to play the ball along the floor. Furthermore he said that while he has been playing, it has been extremely difficult for the midfield to get into the game as the long balls down the flanks had been by-passing them.

At half time, Pollock confirmed that Palace were playing 3-5-2 in the first half. When this was explained to Dave Swindlehurst, the ex-Palace player, during his half time chat with Gary, he was rather surprised to hear this, saying that Palace looked like they were playing a back four during the first half.

Pollock also made some interesting comments about two Palace players on the books. The first one was Dougie Freedman. He clearly is a big fan of Dougie, and constantly said he couldn't believe that Smith had not put him on in the second half. The other player he made a comment about was 'controversial' defender Neil Ruddock. He wanted to see Ruddock play against Preston. Contrary to press reports, Jamie feels that Neil is a good influence on the other players, and said that Palace should be utilising someone of Neil's experience in the back four.

The state of the Selhurst pitch came up in conversation a lot during the afternoon. Pollock said that the players prefered to play away, as the state of the Selhurst pitch has made it increasingly more difficult to play on, especially for players like Rubins, and Forssell. He did say that the Palace fans had been brilliant this season, and the players really want to do the best for them.

After the match, Gary and the other presenters had a number of questions that they wanted to put to manager Alan Smith after the game. They had to wait about 50 mins, as Smith had a long conversation with the players in the dressing room after the game.

Click to hear the whole interview (Real Stream)/ Click here to download an mp3 of the interview (apologies for the quality of sound at the end of the interview). It makes very interesting hearing, and also questions the communication between players and the manager. Note how Alan Smith completely contradicts what Pollock said his tactics were.

Do you agree with what Pollock said? Should Ruddock play again? Were Alan Smith's comments correct about the players? Make your views known on the Palace Talk messageboard.