Re: Crystal Palace Thread : This Week in Palace Palace 0 - Brighton 1 We lost to Brighton 1-0 on what probably was an own goal by Boyce. The loss was disgusting because of (a) the rivalry between the two teams (b) Brighton was propping up the division (c) Palace played like lazy crap. Hate to say it, but Brighton deserved the win. Dowie was livid at the 'quality' (if we can use that word) of play. Hopefully this game acts as a wake up to the team that even though they've won their last few games by healthy margins, there are no walk over teams in this league. They need to consistently lay down the smack down and not expect any gifts. The fact that Simon Jordan has said nothing about this game, speaks volumes. To understand the level of disgust from the fans, they took the colored cards used for the half time display and started making paper airplanes and throwing them on the field, delaying the game as the ref made the players pick them up. Palace 2 - Burnley 0 Good solid workmanlike win. Nothing fancy. A goal apiece from Morrison and Freedman. First one for Dougie all season. Now that he's found the back of the net, maybe he'll start scoring some more. The team played professionally and crisply as opposed to the Brighton game. Every team has a striker that can't score. Ours is Wayne Andrews. Wayne came in at the start of the second half due to McNuff getting hurt (not badly. Should be back next week) and set up the second goal. He did well because he stopped trying to be cute and started doing what he was required to do. Hopefully that point gets drummed into his head. Palace 2 - Liverpool 1 Sweet Nice little upset. Dougie Freedman strikes again (somebody stop him!) and everyones favorite right footed left winger, Marco Reich, gets another Carling Cup goal. Great team effort. We played the sub back line and they (for the most part) held firm. Hudson's mistake though led to Gerrard's goal. The general consensus of the Palace fans are that Liverpool without Gerrard at full strength is half the team it should be. He is the big boss of the midfield and until he gets up to full strength, they are going to suffer. Crouch was again found wanting. Just mark him tight. He has no natural power to his header but instead needs to launch his whole body at the ball. Limit his space and he can't head the ball. Take that away from his game and all you have is an average (though freakish looking) striker. Bad signing by Rafa. He'll be back in fizzy pop within 2 years unless he (a) gets some upper body strength or (b) figures out how to quickly turn and shoot in the box. Morientes seemed toothless as well. The only real threat Liverpool has is Cisse and he (rumored) wants to leave. Next week we take on Crewe. Another bottom of the table team. Hopefully Dowie got it into their skulls that these are the teams we need to feast on, not screw around with.
Welcome back mate, Palace could end up playing either Watford, Leeds or Preston. Even though they are currently third i think Watford would be a good team to face in the playoffs. I think they would be better off avoiding Leeds.
Ahh, Palace. The biggest little club in all of England. Hi THFC, long tme (and don't think I've forgotten that long ass walk from the 7 sisters station neither). The Arsenal - Barca game has me in a bind, I feel bad rooting against a 'English' team but I love the city of Barcelona (plus the team wears red and blue). All the Spur fans, I assume must all be feeling a bit torn rooting against an English team since if Arsenal win, no Europe for the Spurs. But a year of Highbury Squirel jokes will get old real fast. Go Barca! Whats new with the Palace roller coaster? Lots actually. 1. Playoff on Saturday vs. Watford. Will be televised live on Setanta Sport. Don't have a satelite dish but want to watch the game? Try Setanta Broadband. Needless to say, we we need a win. 2. AJ for England? With the Roon out thanks to the logo filled tissue paper that Nike fashioned into a shoe like shape, who knows, a couple of killer performances in the playoffs and the chanting for AJ will begin. Compared to likes of Bent, at least AJ can find the goal. If Sven is in the stands on Saturday, the game should become very interesting ... 3. Milwall and Brighton relegated! Birmingham relegated! Steve Bruce potentially fired! Curbishley leaves Charlton! All we need is to get promoted and this will be a centenary to remember. A Palace fan put together a lovely video of all the goals scored against Milwall this season. Enjoy. 4. Coolest news of the day??? Palace are coming to America! Thats right folks the Eagles are landing in the US. Palace will be playing some pre-season friendlies against USL and MLS teams this July as well opening up a USL based Academy / farm team in Baltimore. Needless to say, I will be there. But with the good, comes the bad. Obviously if Palace don't get promoted, bye bye Dowie. Bye Bye AJ. Welcome to the rollercoaster.
Sorry about the walk from Seven Sisters. At Tottenham's last home game some people in the crowd wore Barcelona shirts, some had scarfs, others had banners so yes we do need Barcelona to win but we need to beat West Ham first. I don't personally think Dowie will go, well he won't get sacked, Charlton may try to get him though. If Palace don't go up AJ will certainly be going, but hopefully not to Tottenham.
Dowie won't get fired, but with a host of openings, especially in the northern parts of the country where his family still lives, he may be tempted. As for Charlton, after what happened last year, I doubt Dowie would go there, nor do I think Simon Jordan would ever sell AJ to Clowntown. As for AJ and Spurs, why? Defoe is AJ. Same style of play. You guys don't play Defoe, why would you play AJ? Looks like the Spurs are trying to do the Big Guy (Mido) / Fast Guy (Keene) combo without Defoe. If you dont land Mido, I assume you'll be on the market for another tall guy. THFC1 - Any news on your end on why Curbishly really left? He didnt get the England job and usually when a manager jumps ship like that, it implies somethings wrong with the club and he doesnt want to stick around to hear the boom. T-Playoff, 18 hours
Curbishley only had another year left on his contract and Charlton wanted to talk to him about renewing his contract but Curbishley didn't want to renew it so the chairman basically pushed him out. You can kind of see his point as they can now build again. http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=389113&CPID=10&clid=31&lid=4161&title=Dowie's+Palace+exit+confirmed Man, you were right, Dowie gone, Simon Jordan is terrible, he was the reason why Coppell left and now he is the reason Dowie left. http://home.skysports.com/list.asp?hlid=389139&CPID=10&clid=31&lid=4161&title=Palace+reject+Johnson+bids Jordan has rejected bids from Bolton, Wigan and Everton for Andy Johnson, Bolton bidded £8m for him.
Actually the impression I got was that Curbs realized that CAFC was prime contender for relegation next year and that the team was hedging its bets. If they did drop under his reign, his growing reputation would have been sullied. Better to leave while on top. Believe it not, the main reason Coppell left is that SJ wanted guarantees, and Coppell, honest guy that he was was not willing to lie one way or the other. He will be missed, but I will be keeping an eye out on Reading next season. SJ is not terrible, in fact most of the fans are praising him for taking Dowie and Charlton to task. Personally after the way the team rolled over and died in the playoffs, I'm happy that ID left. Its hard to describe just how unispired the team played all year. They slept through the entire season. Make no mistake, ID was fired and the whole "he's going back to the north" stuff was a way to politely gloss over that fact. The thing that triggered the whole gate crashing of the press conference / write serving stunt was Dowie joining Charlton. From what has been reported, SJ waived the compensation clause in ID's contract so that ID could go coach up north. This was a mutual deal and Dowie's wife was actually at the meeting. Two days later he winds up 5 miles down the road at Charlton. In everyone's mind, ID had the deal with Charlton lined up and maneuvered the situation so that SJ would not get anything for his leaving. Again, what suprised everybody was how fast he was tapped up by Charlton. Everyone assumed he would get a job at Preston, Middlesboro or Bolton. Going to Charlton is actually a step down for Dowie. - First off, he has no control over the transfer budget nor can he bring in his own front office team. All he does is coach. (this was the main reason why alot of the people that interviewed for the job told CAFC to bugger off). - Secondly Charlton barely avoided the relegation zone this year. If they didnt have that nice run of form to start the season, they would have been struggling to avoid the drop. They are definitely going to be fighting for their lives this season. They need a coach that can extract every ounce of advantage from the team he can. Dowie, is no tactical genius. Our promotion to the EPL in 04/05 and Dowie subsequent addiction to a defensive 451 camoflaged the fact that when we needed to play a more attacking 442, Dowie was clueless. He never substituted properly or gauged the pace of the game properly either in defense or attack. Forget about his starting 11 choices. CP fans were glad that he was leaving because the team ceased to play attractive football and was simply hoofing the ball forward to a pair of midget strikes hoping that they get lucky. Thats not football. I laughed out loud when ID said he was looking forward to playing 'attractive' football at Charlton. The man never played attractive football in his life. If CAFC stumble at the start of the season and then go into their usual late season swoon, they'll get relegated and Dowie's career will be over before it began. All the CP fans were betting on Everton simply because AJ and Beattie are very close friends and they would actually make a very good big man / little man up front combo. From what I heard, AJ actually took a little less in salary to join Everton. With AJ and Beattie in the front and MacFadien and Cahill in the midfield, Everton may suprise alot of teams next year. Other players probably going: - Kiraly (added a million pounds to his asking price when he stopped the Lampard penalty) - Watson Probable new CPFC manager - Souness My gut tells me that the SJ / GS mutual love affair will finally be consumated. God help us if Souness takes charge. Now personally I'm a fan of the move. With Souness and SJ in charge of CP, it will be bad cop / badder cop. None of this touchy feely crap. If he does get the job, I'll post more on why I think its a good move.
The purge continues. Neil McDonald has left the club. One of the big reasons why McDonald was brought over was to improve the team in how it delivered and defended set pieces. One of the corner stones of the Bolton system was that set pieces are a safe way to allow an inferior team to generate goals and that once mastered would give that team an edge in play if coupled with a strong defense. The prime example of this style of play was Greece 2004. Greece won on defense and set pieces. So, lets ask the deep questions. 1. Did our ability to deliver set pieces improve? 2. Did our ability to defend set pieces improve? 3. Did our overall defense improve to allow set pieces to act as the tie breaker between equal teams? I got three no's on my checklist here, so no cookies for McDonald. and a big Bye Bye to Dowie's number 2. PS - To understand just how badly Palace was on set pieces, all you had to do was watch the semi-final against Wartford. The corners were laughable. Also the club announcement was a bit on the cute side. All thats left of the old team is Harbin (the trainer - good guy BTW) and Bob Dowie (Dilligently working on finding his brothers replacement).
New stuff with the Palace 1. Palace have a new boss. It was neck and neck between Souness and Taylor and Taylor won out. Though I would not have minded Souness (the team needed a kick in the ass after the Watford matches) but Taylor is the better choice, plus he's an old Palace hero. 2. Taylor aims to keep Watson and will use some of the AJ money on getting a new striker plus some other players 3. Kiraly wants to go and the team will do its best to get hime where he wants to be. Kiraly is a legend, but a bit of overkill while we're in the CCC. A nice youngis keeper to grow with the team will do nicely. 4. Palace USA has opened its website [http://cpfcusa.com/home.htm] and the US friendlies in July have been confirmed. Tickets can be purchased from the website. I am in the process of switching jobs so I'll only be able to attend the first friendly. Pics and stuff will follow.
crystal palace sign west ham defender fletcher http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/c/crystal_palace/5226812.stm
Loyola College I don't know much about CP, but came across this on the Loyola College website. An iota of info about the PDL team, and an exhibition between it and the mother club
Many..Many...Many...years ago(before I became a Gooner) We walked from Grandad's house (just off Portland Rd.)to Selhurst Park. If you remember this bloke when he was playing for Palace... please PM me. View attachment 2428
Crystal Palace sign Paul Ifill http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/c/crystal_palace/6241273.stm