July 18 2010

Palace v Chelsea

After a 1-0 pre-season defeat by lowly Crawley Town, Palace faced a club at the other end of the spectrum, reports Jamesey. Result: another 1-0 defeat, this time to Chelsea.

Well, there we were - a lovely July day, a new manager, sensible new owners (please, O Lord), and a new season to look forward to.

Just like their last pre-season visit a few years back, the Blues brought supporters by the thousand and the streets surrounding Selhurst were awash with blue shirts.

The match was a sell-out and as usual in those circumstances (in my part of the ground anyway) the first half hour was somewhat spoiled by arguments and chaos because people hadn't sat in the correct seats and were forced to move when the rightful seat holders turned up.

To his credit, Blues manager Carlo Ancelotti didn't fob us off with a load of reserves and his squad included big stars like Petr Cech, Michael Essien, Alex and John Obi Mikel. Even our one-time loan player, Scott Sinclair, was there and got some appreciative applause from the Palace faithful.

Several of George Burley's new recruits were in the starting line-up but it was a great relief to see Julian Speroni and Darren Ambrose out there. I was sure that our two outstanding players of 2009-10 would have been snapped up by predators.

It was also a pleasure to see Neil Danns, giving his usual gutsy and all-out effort for the cause but I was quite intrigued by our No 8, Davide Baiocco. I am informed that the 35-year-old had come over from Italy especially to play in the game and to give Mr Burley a chance to run his eye over him.

The Italian did cut a slightly comic figure and attracted a little unfair derision from coarser elements in the crowd. There had obviously been problems in finding any kit small enough for him, so the baggy shorts and shirt, plus a balding blond pate made him a quite distinctive figure.

However, his football was skilful and constructive and he fitted in well with Palace's far more attractive style of play and there were few examples of "welt it high and hope".

As you would have expected Chelsea's class created a lot of chances and Daniel Sturridge's skill and speed bamboozled the Eagles' defence time and again.

But it's a long road to May 2011 and, all-in-all, the game must have been a nice little earner for starters for our new regime, CPFC 2010.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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