************ RANT ************
This is a brave new world, under new owners and with a new permanent manager. Playing against a team out of form who we should be looking to get a win against. And yet we STILL AREN’T PLAYING OUR BEST ATTACKING COMBINATION. I’m moved to capitals.
All last season almost everything good came from the Jordan Zemura, Jaidon Anthony, Philip Billing triangle. Yet, somehow we seem desperate to not play them. It’s almost like some kind of contract stand off where we’re determined to prove we don’t need them so they should accept our lowball offer. Screw that. Double what we’ve offered and start playing them together again. We do need them. And we need them working together.
Last season all of Anthony’s poorest games were on the right. So when I saw the line up I wasn’t sure how it was going to be arranged but I was delighted that Gary O’Neil had decided to try and play to our attacking strengths against Palace with Anthony on the left. Oh… He’s on the right.
Having a manager learning on the job is one thing. However, he’s been here long enough to know when we look our best attacking teams. And it isn’t with Anthony on the blimmin’ right wing and Billing wandering around like a lost school boy.
I was very dubious about the GON appointment and I’m already looking to see who will come in next. After one damn match. Because if he couldn’t work out the best way to get at Palace was the JA in front of JZ then he’s not got much football insight about him. If he can’t see that JA on the right is almost always a poor bet (10 minutes to shore things up, sure. Starting? No) then what has he been watching the last 18 months?
Above was hammered out on a loudly clanking keyboard due to aggressive typing at half time. We did switch JA to the left for thirty minutes. Probably our best spell of the game was included there, helped by Dembele also offering something on the other side.
************ END OF RANT ************
Actually I’m not done ranting. Lots more where that came from.
Not every team sashays their way to PL safety. Some teams grind and take advantage of their opportunities. We may not have the quality in the squad others have so we need to be efficient. That means being tight defending set pieces and being clever in taking advantage of ours. We’re the absolute opposite. I think my Over 50s team (I only train with them… not quite old enough to play for a few years yet) would be confident of scoring a corner against us. Before today we had to worst record for conceding against corners in the PL this season. Now there’s two more. This has been highlighted time and again, week after week, so whatever is happening on the training ground isn’t working.
Here’s an idea. Rather than being all Vegas Moneybags about signing new players, how about we lash a load of cash on bringing in a top quality set pieces coach? Despite us not being all that great this season, if we could keep out corners, or even only concede from a moderate amount, we’d probably be midtable. That’s how pisspoor the lower half of the league has been so far. And if we knew how to take a set piece and corner… it’d be heady times.
The ref was poor. Couldn’t wait to blow up every time Ayew felt a blade of grass against his boot but denied us a clear penalty. Again. VAR did it’s usual thing. Then he books Kelly for stopping them taking a throw quickly but lets Palace players get away with it repeatedly when we want to take quick free kicks. Not once, but multiple times. One of them literally stuck his boot out to stop the ball. Nothing. Also didn’t book Zaha for collapsing clasping his face like he’d been elbowed when the replay showed there was no contact at all. Usual stuff from Zaha. Took the ref until the 87th minute to book a Palace player. I’m sure that was a big warning for them to stop all the dirty tactics. Meanwhile, he couldn’t wait to get the book out for our players.
Palace will not have an easier three points this season. Feels like I’ve said that before about us this season, but for other teams. I’m sure I have, in fact. We aren’t tigers battling for every ball. We aren’t tricksters baffling the opposition with silky skills. We aren’t pace merchants zipping onto channel balls. What are we when we go forward? Nothing based on today. There’s no identity and the refusal to try and rebuild the successful partnership of last season, especially now Tavernier is out, is madness.
Right now I imagine Foley is feeling the billionaire equivalent of a normal person driving off the second hand car lot with what they thought was a bargain only for the exhaust to drop off 50m down the road and they realise they’ve bought a lemon. I hope he knows a good mechanic.
Palace didn’t win today. We lost.
— Positive performances —-
Smith
Zaha is usually a big problem for us but Smith had him in his pocket almost the whole game. So much so that Zaha ended up swapping around to try and get joy elsewhere. The one time Zaha did get away from him, near the end, he put in a brilliant block to deflect the shot over. A performance Zemura should watch back and learn from
Dembele
Added some action and eagerness. It wasn’t all good but at least he asked some questions.
—- Room for improvement —-
Zemura
A learning experience for him out there today. Defensively he simply wasn’t good enough. All their attacking threat in the first half was coming through his side, often due to poor positional awareness.
Lerma and Cook
They were both so sloppy out there. Constantly mishitting passes or misjudging the ball. Offering so little on the transition from defence through the centre of the field we often ended up hitting it long. And on that…
Senesi
I’ll have nightmares watching him repeatedly hit the ball into the channel for Moore to chase, as if KM was Solanke. When he did hit it long to Moore’s head, it was overhit.
GON watch:
I don’t know what to say. He looked clueless out there. It was one of the least threatening performances I can remember when playing against a team who were equally poor. He needs to get a grip of the situation quickly. And bring in some top quality coaches to support him, especially with set pieces.
Poor tactics, formation all over the place, players confused and no possession or shots in the first half. Diabolical defending of set pieces again and made life so easy for Palace. Can’t be bothered to go in to individual performances but nobody did themselves any favours today. Body language is terrible. Zero leadership on the pitch. GON looking like a rabbit in the floodlights.
Hiring GON permanently was a huge mistake and lazy/incompetent piece of club management that could well relegate us. Nothing against the guy personally but he is an amateur surrounded by amateurs in an elite league – out of his depth and drowning fast. Our management team should have been able to see beyond the mere improvement post Parker to the realities of our form and that we needed experience to keep us in the league, especially if we need to integrate new players in Jan (which we do).
I don’t usually advocate a Watford approach but we need to fail fast here. GON is not the man for the job. We can let this linger and go down or we can act while there is still time, take heat from the media but stand a chance of staying in this league. Foley must have been appalled at what he witnessed today.
Expecting take the flak of being a negative supporter or ‘entitled’ but it comes out of love for the club, we can still stay up with the right signings and an experienced manager and we need to stay up to get the real investment in infrastructure we’ve been longing for. Even if we do go down, which wouldn’t be the end of the world, let’s at least do it fighting and playing something resembling football.
There were absolutely no positives to take from today. A manager brutally exposed and not helped at all by poor performances from almost every single player. Let’s not waste our time blaming the ref, he was poor but we could have had Fletch reffing and we’d still have lost today.
Happy new year all. At least there’s only one direction from that performance… – To join the conversation, click here.
We ‘ ve been done . If O ‘ Neil had not been appointed , certain other
employees would almost certainly have lost their jobs . So , in a sort of protection racket , Blake , Hughes ,
Cooper , Elphick , Fletcher.and more
remain.in an amateur setup .