February 10 2010

Shefki Kuqi

Shefki Kuqi returned to Selhurst with Swansea City and his first-half goal gave the Swans the points. Jamesey reports.

Now that my fingers have unfrozen enough to operate a keyboard, I can't say that I enjoyed my Tuesday evening (Feb 9) sortie to Selhurst Park very much.

The chattering classes used to be the nickname of middle-class trendy Islington professionals at their dinner parties but during this bitter winter weather it more accurately describes the teeth of football supporters at evening games.

But a masochistic crowd of 12,328 turned up to see the high-flying Swans take a deserved victory to end the Eagles winning run of three games in eight days.

After the euphoria of our FA Cup win against Wolves (Feb 2) (although it has to be said that the Wanderers were pretty dire and there for the taking) I suppose we were due for a lacklustre performance. And we certainly got it - especially in the first half.

Nothing seemed to work out for us, with passes going astray and no coherent tactics creating any serious chances for most of the time.

Alan Lee, again in his head bandage, won a lot of balls in the air but his nod-ons usually found an opposition player as there never seemed to be another red-and-blue forward anywhere near him.

We ought to have known that Shefki Kuqi would come back to haunt us. He had a strange career at Palace.

Somebody (Peter Taylor or Bob Dowie?) paid a lot of money for the Kossovar-Finn and to start with it looked like cash chucked into the Wandle.

Most of us will remember his indelicate gesture to the Palace crowd and his subsequent banishment and transfer listing.

But he did stage quite a dramatic comeback and almost won his way back into the hearts of the Palace faithful although the mixture of cheers and catcalls that greeted him wearing a Swans shirt demonstrated the mixed feelings of Eagles supporters.

Well, it looks like a sell-out for our big Cup fixture against Aston Villa on Valentines Day (Feb 14).

We can only hope that Palace's habit of playing well against better sides (although definitely not versus Swansea) will prevail and we can extend our Cup run and make lots of dosh to keep the administrator happy.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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