Our most critical season ?

[Teddy Eagle]

Tbh all I see is gossip, clickbait and teams performing well with apparently good morale and individuals - as you say - responding positively to being 'jolted'.

Could be a tactic for JPM & Sarr. Play badly, get subbed and don't respond to jolting.

 

[est1905]

Every season has this kind of thing with us. We're always a few games away from relegation at some stage. We seem to always need a rebuild, a change of tactics or a new manager. It's like a permanent state of critical.

While that is true its also true of every team except 5 or 6 of the biggest/wealthiest. If we do well it will last for a year, maybe two before teams with more money than coaching skills decide they want our best player(s), manager (in Newcastle's case even the DoF!
Then with what money you can get you try to replace or rework the situation to keep the club ahead of the curve. Clubs like Palace, Fulham, Bournemouth, Brighton, etc are under more pressure to get it right each time because this league really is so incredibly competitive and every point is precious but we are all in exactly the same boat. Year in, year out we have to start from a position of no.1 target: stay in the division. Once thats looking likely, and only then can you move on to other targets.
Brighton have had an amazing start and everyone is gushing over what a 'breath of fresh air' they are. We all know that it could very easily have been different. If they'd lost their first two or three games their manager would be under pressure.
Its the nature of the beast, its the same every year and its the same for every club thats not in the top 6. Even Spurs are starting to learn the cycle that the rest of us have always had to accept.

 

[Charles]

Could be a tactic for JPM & Sarr. Play badly, get subbed and don't respond to jolting.

Sarr didn't seem to be playing badly in his two cameos to date; JPM has yet to return. No dream transfers await players who perform badly.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

While that is true its also true of every team except 5 or 6 of the biggest/wealthiest. If we do well it will last for a year, maybe two before teams with more money than coaching skills decide they want our best player(s), manager (in Newcastle's case even the DoF!
Then with what money you can get you try to replace or rework the situation to keep the club ahead of the curve. Clubs like Palace, Fulham, Bournemouth, Brighton, etc are under more pressure to get it right each time because this league really is so incredibly competitive and every point is precious but we are all in exactly the same boat. Year in, year out we have to start from a position of no.1 target: stay in the division. Once thats looking likely, and only then can you move on to other targets.
Brighton have had an amazing start and everyone is gushing over what a 'breath of fresh air' they are. We all know that it could very easily have been different. If they'd lost their first two or three games their manager would be under pressure.
Its the nature of the beast, its the same every year and its the same for every club thats not in the top 6. Even Spurs are starting to learn the cycle that the rest of us have always had to accept.

That's all true and it makes you wonder what the point is to any of this, in the Premier League at least. Earn fortunes then overpay for transfers and wages just to stay in a position to carry on doing the same thing; providing a scouting system for clubs with billion pound stadiums who have their pick of young players and still want to take any of ours that show any promise as well as any first team players they like the look of.

 

[est1905]

That's all true and it makes you wonder what the point is to any of this, in the Premier League at least. Earn fortunes then overpay for transfers and wages just to stay in a position to carry on doing the same thing; providing a scouting system for clubs with billion pound stadiums who have their pick of young players and still want to take any of ours that show any promise as well as any first team players they like the look of.

I cant speak for others but for me? After a lifetime of supporting my team in the lower divisions (with the occasional one off season in the top flight) I these days love the status of being a long term established member of the Premiership. I think Palace are now the 7th or 8th longest serving Premiership teams (without a relegation/return) now that West Ham have gone. Thats a source of pride for me and every year we grow into that little bit more of a household name in the football world.
Then there's the odd cup/trophy that we can realistically compete for. We have proven it can be done in Europe as well as at home.
This could be our golden period we are living through right now. It may never get better than this to be a Palace fan but personally? That'll do me.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

I cant speak for others but for me? After a lifetime of supporting my team in the lower divisions (with the occasional one off season in the top flight) I these days love the status of being a long term established member of the Premiership. I think Palace are now the 7th or 8th longest serving Premiership teams (without a relegation/return) now that West Ham have gone. Thats a source of pride for me and every year we grow into that little bit more of a household name in the football world.
Then there's the odd cup/trophy that we can realistically compete for. We have proven it can be done in Europe as well as at home.
This could be our golden period we are living through right now. It may never get better than this to be a Palace fan but personally? That'll do me.

It's certainly golden for those us who remember the Third division days but I meant more generally about how outside the money clubs everyone else is at the kid's table and can't move on because any players we get capable of improving our position get taken so quickly. It's possibly always been the case but not to this extent and Bosman has accelerated the whole process.

 

[est1905]

It's certainly golden for those us who remember the Third division days but I meant more generally about how outside the money clubs everyone else is at the kid's table and can't move on because any players we get capable of improving our position get taken so quickly. It's possibly always been the case but not to this extent and Bosman has accelerated the whole process.

Very true

 

[Painter]

Not at all. I've got no problem with him laying down the law. Watching McNeill run his nuts off when he came on against Poznan, it seemed to have worked.

I think there will be more unhappy players about the place than we are used to, but that's not because of Sage. Its because we have signed so many that even senior players who might have expected otherwise have been left out of the Europe squad. Sage will have to manage that, but it's not his doing. If he wants to turn that into ruthless competition for places then fine. There will still be some long faces, though. He will still have to manage more of that than his predecessors did.

My concern about Sage is whether he is tactically astute enough. He seems to want to play a high-risk pressing game which no Palace manager has ever done successfully since we got promoted. Quite the opposite: All our success has come from being stubbornly hard to beat.

If Sage can get his approach to work then great. If not then he will need to use a different approach, but he has no experience of that at all, as far as I can tell.

Glasner complained about the size of the squad last year and having to play the same players into the ground. Now we have addressed the squad options, your complaining about unhappy players not getting a game. Have you ever heard of competition for places, too many players didn't have to try as they were guaranteed starts, not anymore Sage is ruthless with lazy players.

 

[Elwissthebest]

A lot of rumours online parish is considering replacing Pierre sage, surely not true……is there something going on behind the scenes we do not know?

It’s been an ok start. The issue is defence but we did not replace Lacroix yet

Lacroix continues current form and Alonso will send him back.

 

[Elwissthebest]

That's all true and it makes you wonder what the point is to any of this, in the Premier League at least. Earn fortunes then overpay for transfers and wages just to stay in a position to carry on doing the same thing; providing a scouting system for clubs with billion pound stadiums who have their pick of young players and still want to take any of ours that show any promise as well as any first team players they like the look of.

Couldn't agree more. Just canon fodder for the big six. Which is sort of 'fine'.

 

[Aray]

This is the key. If he creates a viable way of playing for Palace in the premier league then everything else is just normal background noise. If he doesn't (and Leeds was the first and only sign that he can, so let's wait and see) then all those unhappy players suddenly become a story (or a source of leaks). No Palace manager has had to deal with that before. Our ship is rarely rocked from within. Its a big part of our stability, which is the key to our success.

I think people over-value squad depth. It matters sometimes, but not as much as the strength of the team. It is not clear to me that rotating players to keep legs fresh, or making them compete for places against each other, ultimately leads to the same rewards as having a settled side who are familiar with each other, and a smaller group of players who all feel responsible for results because they play most of the games. A larger squad brings it's own challenges. To have Guessand, Lerma, Franca, Doucoure, Gozo, and Matthews all at training every day from Mon to Thurs with no motivation as they are not, and cannot be, involved is a problem most managers would want to avoid, especially when you need to call upon some of them for league games.

I don't think we did have too few players last year, we just had too few good enough ones. We now seem to have quantity over quality. One way to get the best out of more modest players is to organise them in a system that suits them, then make them feel some sort of ownership of results. I worry that there will be too many players playing so few games that they can allow themselves to shrug bad results off as not being their fault or responsibility.

I agree with much of this but on one point you’re wrong: there’s no doubt the squad was too weak. More example, Devenny was a mainstay and look at the level he has now found. Most successful teams these days have a settled and strong 15-17 players, I’d say. We had a strong 13-14?

 

[Teddy Eagle]

Modern players have grown up with the concept of squad rotation and multiple substitutions so while they naturally want to play hopefully have a better attitude to not being in the starting line up. They probably don't though.