January 17 2011

Dougie Freedman

It wasn't pleasant to watch but Jamesey wasn't completely downhearted after the Eagles belly-flopped in a 3-0 defeat at Swansea.

Only a few months ago Swansea City came to Selhurst and gave us a 0-3 pasting.

Blow me, on our away visit the Swans repeated the procedure and the same result obtained at the Liberty Stadium.

The circumstances of the away game were hardly pointing to an Eagles victory. One win on our travels in the whole season so far is not a statistic to encourage. But with a new manager at the helm, Palace behemoth Dougie Freedman, there was always hope that the new broom might sweep us to a point at least.

Well, we knew from the home game that Swansea City are a skilful and well-drilled team who look like returning to the top tier next season after decades in lower division limbo.

I hope the Message Board Police will forgive me but I watched the game on-line (thanks once more for the links, staffie) so whether I am entitled to have a view on the game is an open question. No, it's not an open question - of course I am, just like dozens of other HOL members who have posted their views without actually being in south-west Wales.

I thought we held it together quite effectively until the end of the first half. But there was always that niggling feeling that goals were going to come for the Swans and they looked by far the superior team.

But the best side doesn't always win and if we could have held them at bay until half-time who knows what might have transpired in the second half.

But they scored just before half-time and after that I was pessimistic enough to feel that three points for the home side were a mere formality.

In the second period we did what had become all-too-familiar in the Burley reign and went from bad to worse, giving away two penalties, and I was mightily afeared that we might be at the wrong end of a cricket score (an unusual happening in Wales).

Where does that leave us now? Still anchored in the bottom three and with the worst goal difference in the division.

Is there a bright side? Possibly, yes. Our home form has been pretty good of late and with two home games coming up, we could theoretically grab six points and transform our lowly position. Where there's life, there's hope.

And if we go down, we go down. Far bigger clubs than ourselves have taken the drop to the third tier in recent years and not curled up and died.

I was interested to see that our website editor, Penge Eagle, put up an incandescently furious posting challenging the players to pull their collective finger out and play as if their lives depended on it.

I don't always agree with Gordon (and vice-versa) but I am certainly not going to risk my April bonus payment by publicly arguing with him.

He may have put his points too strongly for some to stomach but he is dead right. If they can't do it for us, Dougie and the consortium, what hope is there? Or are the Burley imports just not good enough to allow passion and desire to overcome limited skills?

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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