Lets Have A Willie Good Season

That was an emotional transfer window. There was some daft bits going on with some clubs, but I think we have reshaped quite well following our transfers out.
My 'Prats Of The Window' award goes to Brendan Rodgers and Liverpool.
When a player and a club sign a 5 year contract, they are both committing to those 5 years for each other. When a player dares to say half way through or even in year 4 that they wish to leave, everybody goes mental, that player is a traitor, a money grabber who is showing no loyalty or commitment.
However when a club do it, it is meant to be acceptable.
Andy Carroll has done nothing wrong at Liverpool. He has taken a while to settle in but he has worked hard despite the pressure and price tag, and had a decent finish to the season. He has declared he wants to stay and fight for his place. So for Brendan Rodgers to publicly tell him to leave and embarrass him to the football world by publicy making him unwanted is a disgrace. And its a bit of karma that they failed to replace him with Clint Dempsey. This is the club that pushed Xabi Alonso out the door to replace him with Gareth Barry only to get Aquilani.

Anyway back to Palace. 
Delaney came in first which I thought was a sensible signing. Bags of experience at this level.
All we ask is that he can deal with crosses! So far this season our back line has had worse experiences of a cross than sweet baby Jesus did as a grown man.
And then Goodwillie!!!! (*giggles like a child). Thank god he isn't a keeper so we do not have to discuss Goodwillie handling.
This signing is the one we needed in my opinion. A still young player with bags of potential who has something to prove.
I have already seen the female Palace fans commenting on his looks as he does seem to be a fairly handsome chap, and being a handsome fan, i know our lovely female fans love a handsome chap :)
He has never started 3 games in a row for Blackburn and that fact their fans have been disappointed he has left on loan tells you how they rate him. He will score goals for us.
Leading up to the window closing we saw the usual dramatical cries of how we'd been let down by CPFC2012 (the chaps who saved us) and the predictable tweet of 'we need a goalscorer so sign one Palace'.
I need to sleep with a Spice Girl but doing it isn't as easy as it sounds my friends (As the 5 restraining orders hanging on my bedroom wall will tell you).
The other complaints were 'why are we leaving it to the last minute?'. At this point I was banging my head against the wall. I wish people would think when it comes to football.
Most big business is done at the end of the window in a domino effect. Blackburn spent 8 million on Rhodes at the end of the window (after weeks of negotiating the price), this then allows the availability of Goodwillie, so we sign him at that point.
2 weeks ago Goodwillie would not have been available as Blackburn would have kept him had they failed to sign Rhodes. That is why most business is done at the end.
And for those who say loan signings are a waste of time and bad for the long term, think again my friends. I don't even have to name the names of loan signings who have been fantastic for us. Loan signings are a win win win situation for all 3 parties. It freshens the squad up with extra quality that keeps regulars on their toes and allows us to use players we may not be able to afford permanently.
So as we reflect on the window, I ask you this. Have a look at the squad list and pick your starting 11. Then look at what players you couldn't squeeze into the starting 11. Not bad really?

Dougie To Stay Or Go? & Rivalry With Brighton

There are 2 different directions to place your head as a Palace fan right now.
The obvious and easy way is to call for his head. The run of form, not just this season but the whole of 2012, is certainly enough to be given the bullet at most clubs. Tactics are negative, signings missed and a sudden inability to defend. So many feel he should go.
Then there are the pro Dougie fans who look at this at a different angle.
This guy has saved us on numerous occasions as a player and a manager and taken us on journeys that we never dreamed of, such as the cup run last season beating Man U at Old Trafford, going down in history as the first team to beat Brighton at their new stadium in the league. Dougie has got money to spend (despite the morons that keep blaming CPFC2010 not realising), however having seen this club struggle for finances, he is acting ever so shrewd and careful with the money we now have. You only have to look at the pisshead George Burley splashing decent cash on Dorman to realise how easy managers can waste rare budget availability. Last week we signed 3 good players, i believe 2 more are on their way this week, these ones being quality loan signings from the Premiership. To sack Dougie now, in the middle of this would be daft. 
By the end of the week he will have assembled the squad he feels can make an impact in a league that many Palace fans forget is very strong. He will then be allowed time to gell that team, and win some games with the squad at his disposal. He has to be given that time.
If by January we are in the bottom 3, i think it would be fair to say this would need to be revisited.
In all honesty, who on earth would we bring in anyway? A manager is also only as good as the support around him. The loss of Popovic has made an impact, without a doubt.
Whilst we bounce from 4-1 defeat to another, our 'friends' in blue and white have been taking to twitter to announce their delight at our recent poor form. This has led to mixed emotions for me, as i am a very passionate man. After seeing a series of aggressive tweets from Brighton fans, i reacted and sent a tweet referencing to our league positions over the past 30 years with a parting insult attached to the end of the tweet. Now watching the RT's fly in made me feel good. But only for about 10 minutes.
That was because i received this response from a Brighton lady ' Tbf it isn't all of us. I'm definitely not laughing, because I can actually remember when we were fighting relegation in league 2'
I also received this tweet from a Brighton chap 'you should read your own blog 23aug again. No need for the insult at the end'. (refering to a blog i wrote on twitter idiots), Followed by 'the intellectual #bhafc fans know that for 30+ yrs you have been better. Imagine if you support ncfc or mcfc #keepitbanter.

That got me thinking. They were right, why do we lower ourselves to the idiots levels, and tweet like idiots in response? To be fair, Brighton fans have every right to celebrate and rib us. We would certainly do the same to them.
But football is a game, lets keep the banter (i hate that word) and tweets football related and respect each other as humans. Don't get me wrong, i am a passionate fairly aggressive Palace fan who takes our rivalries seriously, but i actually have a few Brighton fan followers who i follow. I chat with these people regularly, sometimes having good football chats where the rivalry is ignored. I have even had a bet with one said chap where if we finish below them, i donate £50 to a charity of his choice and vice versa if we finish above Brighton.
When i get angry and direct tweets of hatred at Brighton's fans, i will then see a tweet from one of those i get on with, talking about their day at college/work, their family, celebrating kids birthdays etc, and it makes me feel like an absolute idiot. The majority are just normal people, don't let the minority spoil it. 
Lets be honest, their are plenty of idiot Palace fans who embarrass us for many reasons.
From now on i am going to keep the rivalry football related, ignore the idiot Brighton fans who cross the line, and continue to embrace those Brighton fans who respect and want a healthy football fan rivalry the way it should be.
Its also worth remembering that a lot of younger Palace fans follow us on Twitter. We need to take responsibility for how we portray right and wrong as football fans of our club, to these fans who are our future.

Twitter, Tactics & Darcy

It has been a difficult week as a Palace fan. 2 defeats, one in the dying minutes in a match we led twice and one convincingly by conceding 4 goals to our 1.
This leads to the inevitable uproar across social media sites and message boards.
Now i've never gone onto the message boards like the BBS or dare read the comments on the Crystal Palace Facebook updates, as the comments are not very well thought through in my opinion. They are rash, lack research, and some even lack a point. But its quite correct that everybody has a freedom of speech and opinion. Therefore I have always stuck to Twitter, where the users seem much more intellectual and look at things from a better perspective. I used to believe this was because the 'sack the board, manager, anybody' idiots lacked the intelligence to power up a Twitter account and use it. Sadly though, this past week has made me lose that faith and belief, as I scroll through the #cpfc hash tag shaking my head.

Right now it is in my opinion that us fans have a right to question some tactics we have been using, most notably of shutting up shop and holding on to 1 goal leads with dear life. We will never know what Dougie and Lenny go with when they discuss their tactics and plans, so this argument could go either way. Is it the managers tactics as he likes that style? Are the players not sticking to the system and instructions that Dougie is asking? Are the players to afraid to express themselves, especially in front of goal in case  they are predictably labelled 'SH*T' by so many across the previous mentioned sites?
Okay football players are paid well and have a great life. However, they are human beings and have the same feelings and hearts as us fans. You know when you go to work one day and have one of those days where everything goes wrong? You make a few errors, it can happen, you are only human.
Imagine if the people who pay your wages, or anybody in fact, started telling the world how crap you had been and you had not tried that day? Imagine if you had to take that abuse of hundreds of people and be unable to respond. Imagine if you were one of the hardest working members of your team and had a rare off day, then to find those people had contacted your wife and abused her? (This happened to Dean Moxey and his lovely wife Michelle this week). ANY human being, whether it be a £200 a week factory worker or £10,000 a week footballer would be angry, demoralised, and probably be in a 'sod it' frame of mind. I don't care what wage you or they earn, it is human nature to be hurt and angry.
As paying fans we have a right to have our say, however, it has to be constructive and certainly not personal.
Fans just need to look at the bigger picture and realise how we can impact the players next performance by motivating them with our support.
Just have a think about that.

Anyway......moving on to a positive, we have a signing! our 5th signing of the summer people seem to forget!
Darcy Blake from Cardiff City for a few believed to be around £350,000. 
At a time when Cardiff players do not know if they are red or blue, this chap has decided to become red and blue!
A versatile player who is highly regarded. Blake can play right back, centre back, right wing......just the versatility we need. We don't know a huge amount about the player as his career at Cardiff was interrupted by injury, but many Cardiff fans have told me he is a quality player and 10 Wales caps already to his name. However his attitude and love of junk food has been well documented at Cardiff. A quick sample of those burgers at those prices at Selhurst should eradicate that problem fairly sharpish though!
This is the right type of player, at the right age, for the right fee. It may take longer to sign players like this, but it'll be worth the wait we hope.
On to the next one then please Dougie!

Panic Or Patience?????

Being a Crystal Palace fan has always been an emotional roller-coaster.
I've seen promotions, relegations, an FA Cup Final draw & a loss (imagine if penalties existed in 1990?), i've cried at Wembley when Steve Claridge shin rolled one past Nigel Martyn at the end of extra time, i also cried different tears there when Hopkin looked to curl one the following year, and of course I have seen administration and the club being so close to folding. I could go on.
My point is, when the club is stable, the foundations are there, our academy continues to produce incredible talent and everything is peaceful, why do Palace fans still go mad? We haven't spent 5 million on a goalscorer, so everyone thinks its disaster ahead.

When you sit back and compare the present to the bad times we have encountered, I find the normal fans amongst us will feel quite happy with the way things are.
I'd love us to spend big on a goalscorer, but when you look at last seasons league 1 top scorer being looked at by another championship club at a fee of 5-6 million, plus 35k a week, you have to be realistic.
Our stadium is not a revenue generator like many others in the league, our attendances are ok but double that number attends many other clubs in the league. People need to have a think about where the millions of pounds and 10's of thousands a week needed to sign these top players come from.
At the moment, we have to look at squeezing as much money through the turnstiles and the fantastic marketing powers of Sharon Lacey (marketing manager), and also now and then we will have to pinch a few quid off of squad players who are on decent wages and can command a fee.
Darren Ambrose, I loved him, he loved us. My heart wanted him to stay, my head told me that if your top earner is on the bench, averaging 60 minutes when he does start, and not contributing as much as he did, it makes sense to give him a fresh challenge elsewhere and free up that wage space.
Sean Scannell, he was a Palace boy, my heart wanted Scanz to fill his rassclart potential at Palace, but my head told me he never found a comfortable position in our side, and he too would benefit from a fresh start elsewhere.
These 2 players have produced some incredible moments for Palace, if it wasn't for those 2 would we have survived that final day at Hillsborough? When you see Stern John jogging about half asleep, no answer is required.
HOWEVER. Players come and go. Ask Man United fans if its possible to lose big name players and move on.
Nathaniel Clyne has been gone for 2 seasons and we wish him his deserved chance in the Premiership.
We have signed 3 good players though, Joel Ward was highly sought after and Colin Warnock, Paul Jewell and a few other managers probably thought they would be ahead of us in the queue. Joel chose us.This is a massive signing that helps deal with the real major loss for the starting 11 out of the 3 mentioned departures.
Aaron Martin has potential, I have Southampton fan mates who have confirmed this. I think he will go on to be a star in the heart of our defence as he hungrily tries to prove to Nigel Adkins that he deserves a chance at Southampton in the Premiership. I've always liked signing players on loan who are young, hungry and want to prove their worth to their parent club. Cast your thoughts back to previous scenario's of this type of signing. Didn't we help develop the worlds best left back through a loan? (Ashley Cole).
Aaron Wilbraham was a smart signing. Firstly he turned Brighton down for us so he is already a top bloke in my eyes. Aaron may not be a prolific striker but his strength, movement and hold up play will ease the burden off Murray's shoulders and create goal scoring opportunities for Zaha etc. Those who have seen Wilbrahimovic in pre season say he looks decent. His experience will also help Appiah remain #focused on his development.
Currently I agree we need to strengthen a few areas. I'd say a winger (who can switch wings), Ramage has just this minute signed a deal which gives us the cover needed at right back and centre back, so the only other area is a striker.

Dougie has tried. This is not a football league manager game where you can use cheat codes to sign the best players. We nearly got McCormack, but we didn't so we move on.
Its been mentioned that we have 40k a week space on the wage bill and a few modest bob available to pay a fee. If we blow that by panic buying, like many fans would like us to do, then we will be in trouble.
So what if we do not get that goalscorer in this window, there is still goals in this team.
So lets reflect on what we have.
The best keeper in the league. A decent backline with some great strength in depth at left back in particular, a midfield packed with options. Only us Palace fans know this, but we have the best young midfielder in the league in Jonny Williams who will be talked of across the country as Zaha was last season.
De Silva and Fenwick will be in and around the squad more, and we have solid players in O'Keefe, KG and Jedinak. We also have the left foot wand of Garvan. We also have Marrow coming back to fitness. The best player around at his age group in Allassani. Need I go on?

I think goals will come from Murray and Zaha this season. Dougie will be working on Wilfs end product and I can see him playing more up top this season as he poses a threat in the final 3rd. Murray will be more settled and less isolated so goals will come more often to a man I feel was treated harshly last season.
Sometimes signing a top striker and near on bankrupting yourself doesn't need to happen. Remember when we sold our best striker Clinton Morrison and got a certain Andrew Johnson as part of the deal?
My point is that someone can step forward and deliver the goals when you least expect them to.
I think I may be correct in saying Reading sold 1 or 2 of their best players last season?

Either way my main point of this is, sit back and have a look at what we have.
Lets be thankful we haven't got to march to a banks head quarters and demand we aren't closed down, lets go to the games and continue what has been the best atmospheres i've seen at Selhurst for decades.

Inspiration To Footballers

As I sit here, watching Emmerdale, I realise just how much I'm missing the Olympics. 

I've always been a massive football fan, but struggle to be passionate towards other sports. I like to get the sticks out on the golf course every now and then and I've nearly collapsed running around a squash court once or twice, but I've never been a fan of watching any sport other than football. 

So when the Olympics began, I'd not prepared myself and mentally built myself for what I was about to witness. 

'Proud to be British' is not something we've had many opportunities to say over the past year or so, as we have seen riots tear through the capital and other cities, and terrible crimes taking up the front pages. 

But this olympics has made me proud from deep inside my heart. I wish I had the opportunity to attend this magical event, I didn't even try for tickets so its my fault, but I witnessed a lot of it on tv. The rowing stood out for me. I haven't shouted 'GO ON, GO ON, Yesssss!' so madly since the days when Sasa Curcic would go on a mazy run at Selhurst Park. I am quite en emotional person, it doesn't take much to set me off, and I will openly admit I cried tears of joy on many occasions during this Olympics. 

Every medal had a magical story behind it. Every medal winner has trained solidly for many years to win. But what melted mine and the nations hearts is how professional, level headed and grateful these athletes came across. At a time when our footballers are racially abusing each other on the pitch, sniping on twitter and behaving like absolute idiots, the athletes performances and personalities have been a breath of fresh air. I remember a track event ran by women, when the race had finished, all competing athletes congratulated thewinning athlete. Fantastic to see. I can't find enough words to sum up how fantastic the athletes are as sports men and women, and the people they are. True champions. 

Now we go back to our first love of football, and get ready to see the likes of Balotelli, Terry, Ferdinand, Suarez, Barton etc. 

Many feel the attitude and failure of the modern day footballer is the money they earn. Maybe.  I just hope these morons have watched the Olympics like me, seen the way a true sports champion conducts themselves, and well, we can only hope it melted their heart like it did mine. 

I suppose one of the good things of being a Crystal Palace fan is that we do not have the top footballers. What we have is honest hard working pro's who are striving to succeed. The likes of Dean Moxey, Paddy McCarthy etc are true sportsmen. They are 10 times better people than the likes of Rio Ferdinand, Barton, Terry etc. 

I'm hoping our true hero athletes have inspired our football players present and future, and shown them what it takes, to be a top sports person on and off the field. 

One can only dream I suppose!