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.

 

[TheBigToePunt]

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.

Glasner didn't play the same players every week because the squad was too small, he did it because the squad wasn't very strong. For instance, towards the end he played Wharton and Kamada into the ground but more or less froze out Hughes and Lerma, who could have played instead. We could all name the Glasner starting XI if they were all fit. The club had to sell Guehi over Glasners head to force him to pick Canvot, otherwise the same back three would have played all the time. He could have rotated more, he chose not to.

And why did he do this?

Firstly, because he, like Hodgson and Pulis before him, is a training ground coach who spends hours drilling the XI into shape, showing them exactly how he wants them to play together, constantly repeating, reiterating, and fine-tuning. Whilst that kind of work doesn't wholly prohibit player rotation, it does lend itself far more to picking an XI and working intensively with them. You don't want to spend weeks getting a high level understanding between a combination of players just to change the parts and lose the benefits of your work.

Secondly, because (to return to the centre of midfield) Glasner thought Kamada and Wharton were better players than Hughes and Lerma, and he wanted to win. There is a world of difference between having three or four top class players for two positions, and having two really good ones understudied by two lesser players. Quantity doesn't matter without quality. That just means rotating players makes the team weaker. Hence why Glasner didn't do it much.

The only reason our current bloated squad offers Sage the chance to rotate without reducing the quality of the team is that so many of them are very average.

Finally, I return to the point that in any walk of life you will get more out of people if they feel they 'own' it or cannot evade responsibility for it. A big squad with lower minutes for each is at odds with that. That's new for Palace, and we don't know how it will go.

I'm not suggesting there is no benefit at all to a larger squad. I recognise competition for places can be healthy, I just don't see how having four average players competing to play behind the striker is better than relying on two good ones. There is a benefit to fresh legs sometimes, but does it outweigh form, talent, and tactical familiarity? Not obviously. Different tactical options are useful in some games. I can see us, for instance, using Chilwell when we are on top of an opponent and Mitchell otherwise. That doesn't mean, though, that when Pino is labouring to affect a game its because he is right-footed and so bringing on McNeill will solve it. Football isn't chess. The problem, usually, is just that Pino isn't very good.

Overall, I just don't think it is as simple as saying small squad = bad, big squad = good. The budget for players is like butter; Spread it too thick and it won't cover the toast. Spread too thinly and it'll just be weak.

 

[MrRobbo]

Glasner didn't play the same players every week because the squad was too small, he did it because the squad wasn't very strong. For instance, towards the end he played Wharton and Kamada into the ground but more or less froze out Hughes and Lerma, who could have played instead. We could all name the Glasner starting XI if they were all fit. The club had to sell Guehi over Glasners head to force him to pick Canvot, otherwise the same back three would have played all the time. He could have rotated more, he chose not to.

And why did he do this?

Firstly, because he, like Hodgson and Pulis before him, is a training ground coach who spends hours drilling the XI into shape, showing them exactly how he wants them to play together, constantly repeating, reiterating, and fine-tuning. Whilst that kind of work doesn't wholly prohibit player rotation, it does lend itself far more to picking an XI and working intensively with them. You don't want to spend weeks getting a high level understanding between a combination of players just to change the parts and lose the benefits of your work.

Secondly, because (to return to the centre of midfield) Glasner thought Kamada and Wharton were better players than Hughes and Lerma, and he wanted to win. There is a world of difference between having three or four top class players for two positions, and having two really good ones understudied by two lesser players. Quantity doesn't matter without quality. That just means rotating players makes the team weaker. Hence why Glasner didn't do it much.

The only reason our current bloated squad offers Sage the chance to rotate without reducing the quality of the team is that so many of them are very average.

Finally, I return to the point that in any walk of life you will get more out of people if they feel they 'own' it or cannot evade responsibility for it. A big squad with lower minutes for each is at odds with that. That's new for Palace, and we don't know how it will go.

I'm not suggesting there is no benefit at all to a larger squad. I recognise competition for places can be healthy, I just don't see how having four average players competing to play behind the striker is better than relying on two good ones. There is a benefit to fresh legs sometimes, but does it outweigh form, talent, and tactical familiarity? Not obviously. Different tactical options are useful in some games. I can see us, for instance, using Chilwell when we are on top of an opponent and Mitchell otherwise. That doesn't mean, though, that when Pino is labouring to affect a game its because he is right-footed and so bringing on McNeill will solve it. Football isn't chess. The problem, usually, is just that Pino isn't very good.

Overall, I just don't think it is as simple as saying small squad = bad, big squad = good. The budget for players is like butter; Spread it too thick and it won't cover the toast. Spread too thinly and it'll just be weak.

I still think its fair to say that the level of the squad players has improved. Chillwell better than Sosa, Mingueza better than Clyne etc.

And we are really going to need the full squad in October.

Have just looked at the fixtures. After the international break we have 7 matches in 20 days. That is insane. And could be season defining.

Whoever designs these international breaks needs putting down.

 

[doombear]

I still think its fair to say that the level of the squad players has improved. Chillwell better than Sosa, Mingueza better than Clyne etc.

And we are really going to need the full squad in October.

Have just looked at the fixtures. After the international break we have 7 matches in 20 days. That is insane. And could be season defining.

Whoever designs these international breaks needs putting down.

Why?
It's better than last year with one less such break now so one extra week for domestic football. We have 7 games in 20 days because we've been successful and are in Europe and still in the League Cup. The answer to fixture congestion as this time of year is to get rid of the League Cup and bring us in line with other leagues of 20 teams with just one domestic cup competition,

 

[Save Dwindlehurst]

Why?
It's better than last year with one less such break now so one extra week for domestic football. We have 7 games in 20 days because we've been successful and are in Europe and still in the League Cup. The answer to fixture congestion as this time of year is to get rid of the League Cup and bring us in line with other leagues of 20 teams with just one domestic cup competition,

The League Cup is important revenue to lower league clubs. To ditch it would rightly be seen as a selfish and greedy move by the bigger clubs. They’ve already suffered when FA Cup replays were shelved which was a disgraceful decision.

 

[doombear]

The League Cup is important revenue to lower league clubs. To ditch it would rightly be seen as a selfish and greedy move by the bigger clubs. They’ve already suffered when FA Cup replays were shelved which was a disgraceful decision.

Not if the Premier League were to funnel more of their income down the pyramid to compensate.

English football has to adapt to the demands of UEFA sadly. They wanted more midweek slots for their competitions which is why cup replays were ended. The alternative would have been to cut the Premier League to 18 clubs as happened to the French Ligue 1 for the 2023/24 season. Germany have been an 18 club league for ages, so only Spain, Italy and us have a 20 club league. UEFA would dearly love all three of us to reduce to 18 clubs. More revenue for UEFA then and less for the domestic leagues.

 

[MrRobbo]

Why?
It's better than last year with one less such break now so one extra week for domestic football. We have 7 games in 20 days because we've been successful and are in Europe and still in the League Cup. The answer to fixture congestion as this time of year is to get rid of the League Cup and bring us in line with other leagues of 20 teams with just one domestic cup competition,

Because we've just had a World Cup.

And as a result we've had a disrupted pre-season and impacted start to the season.

We now have 4 glorified England friendlies, that nobody is really bothered about.

And clearly due to our international squad we're going to have lots of of players scattered around the globe. Limiting our ability to prepare for Forrest, and increasing the chances of injuries.

Richards for example is playing Canada, 3 games before the Forrest game. How is that 'fair' to the club that pays him?

 

[doombear]

Because we've just had a World Cup.

And as a result we've had a disrupted pre-season and impacted start to the season.

We now have 4 glorified England friendlies, that nobody is really bothered about.

And clearly due to our international squad we're going to have lots of of players scattered around the globe. Limiting our ability to prepare for Forrest, and increasing the chances of injuries.

Richards for example is playing Canada, 3 games before the Forrest game. How is that 'fair' to the club that pays him?

Except the manager and his staff plus the manager and staff of every other national team who want to see their teams in action before the major tournaments come round. At least the Nations League is a step up from a simple friendly - not that I'll bother watching it.

Other Prem teams are in the same boat as us as they were during the World Cup. Success results in having players who play for their National Team. We can't have it both ways. If we don't want our players going off to these international games then we should simply get ourselves relegated and ply our trade in a lower division. (and lose our best players in the process.

 

[Charles]

I'm not suggesting there is no benefit at all to a larger squad. I recognise competition for places can be healthy, I just don't see how having four average players competing to play behind the striker is better than relying on two good ones.

I don't think this is why the squad has been enlarged. I think the reason is that trying to complete the fixture list with the squad we had last season resulted in endless injuries which all but cost us our Premier League place. OG admitted he had thought the squad was large enough but seriously underestimated the demands of the Premier League.