April 14 2009

Crystal Palace

The only Easter eggs opened at Selhurst would have had a bad smell rising from them after two more losses. Jamesey reports.

Our current poor form hardly held much promise of a result when strong play-offs contenders, Cardiff City, rode into town.

And on Easter Saturday, the Bluebirds duly notched up another three points towards a possible Premier League berth. A penalty and a second half goal were enough to deepen the gloom at Selhurst Park.

The game itself was reasonable enough but largely forgettable and one of the main points of interest took place at half-time as the teams and managers walked off the pitch.

Cardiff gaffer, Dave Jones, upset by a foul on one of his players by Claude Davis, appeared to lunge at the Palace man and had to be restrained. Just as well he got nowhere near or he could well have ended up as an unsightly mess on the deck if Claude had got near him.

After the game there was a lot of blustering and posturing by Jones about reporting the foul to the FA, etc, etc.

Well, players sometimes get hurt by accident in games and that's the way it goes. If the FA ever got involved, it would be interesting to hear their findings on football managers, who are supposed to be an example to us all, attempting to start an unprovoked fight with a player in the middle of the game.

I listened to our Easter Monday game on Palace World Radio which, as we now know, we managed to lose 1-0.

There seems to be an unfortunate pattern emerging in our matches with struggling clubs.

In the past few months we have lost to Watford (fourth from bottom at the time), Charlton (bottom then and still bottom now) and, to top it all, Southampton (second from bottom). We must be the most popular club in the league with relegation candidates.

Perhaps the players think that CPFC stands for Charitable Providers Football Club?

According to the radio commentary and many of the away supporters' accounts, we were abysmal, hardly able to even muster a shot on goal in the second half.

Even with a want-away chairman and a retirement-minded manager, perhaps our team could muster some passion and desire for our penultimate home game against Derby County on Saturday?

We live in hope.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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