March 7 2012

Dougie Freedman

The recent draw away to former Premier League side West Ham, who are riding high in second place in the Championship table, proves that Crystal Palace have come a long way, says Ben Nagle.

Since Dougie Freedman took over as permanent manager at the start of 2011, we as Palace fans have been told consistently not to get too over excited and to expect too much from a team that are still finding its feet on the Championship playing field.

Palace fans, and football fans in general, can be fickle creatures who expect a lot from teams who aren’t ready to progress yet, and the situation with Freedman and the current breed of players is one that is fits this bill down to a tee.

At the start of the Doog’s tenure, we crashed out of the FA Cup to Coventry and lost 3-0 away to Swansea in the first month, and over the course of the season had the worst away record in the league, losing seven of a possible eleven away games under Freedman – and the other four were draws.

This is hardly a ringing endorsement for the managerial newbie. But like we were told all along, Crystal Palace is a work in progress. We stayed up, after all, and looking at this season we’ve got a lot to be proud of. Freedman stated that he was starting from the back, looking for strength in depth, and a team that ‘refused to be beaten’.

Going back at the West Ham match, I noticed that the commentators kept referring to our defence as one of the best in the league – we don’t let in many goals, and this is shown with recent results. This season, we've kept 15 clean sheets in the league (second highest in the division) – and a lot of those were away from home. Freedman’s point proven.

We gained four points from Millwall, four points from Brighton, and didn’t lose to title contenders West Ham at Selhurst or at the Boleyn Ground. We had a cup run which involved wins against Crawley Town, Wigan Athletic, Middlesborough, Southampton, Manchester United, and Cardiff. We beat United at Old Trafford... A win... at Man United.

We missed out on Wembley by a couple of spot-kicks, and we’re mid-table at the time of writing, seven points from the play-off places. How times have changed.

I’m not saying we should be pushing for the top six this season, we’re not ready for that yet – but give Freedman a couple more years to develop his squad and we’ll be pushing for promotion to the top flight, no doubt. We’re Crystal Palace, and we’ll be back where we belong.