How it came to this

[PatrickA]

My understanding of the Guehi - Glasner saga was that it was the timing that was the problem. So on the last day of the summer window it looked like Guehi was off to Liverpool with no replacement incoming. Then in January, when Guehi went to City, it was after Glasner had prepared his team for the Sunderland game, in which he had included Guehi - therefore a disruption to those preparations.

As i said earlier, I don't endorse Glasner's subsequent behaviour. But I think he's intelligent enough to understand the financials involved.

I believe your understanding of the situation is correct.
I took it as Glasner alluding to the lack of professionalism at the club in acting in the way outlined, and he wasn’t the first manager to point this out .
Normal manager/ board tension or an observation with some merit?

 

[BromleyMonkey]

All the previous teams outside the "top 6" who have won trophies have had their squads torn apart and look where they are now. It's now happened to us.

Clubs that constantly sell their best players eventually end up going down, wolves and saints are prime examples, it looks like it’s finally caught up with us.

Selling two of the best CB’s in the division and Munoz and replacing them with players who are just not good enough or out of their depth and the constant chopping and changing of the back three because of this is why we’re shipping chances and goals and why it’s come to this

I know someone will say Brighton sell their best players, but we’re not Brighton and clearly they’ve got a great recruitment team

 

[OneStevePerrin]

The team needs building again, just as the team did before we won our trophies. We can’t be a Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and……….
We may never have a team again as good as the one where trophies were won but just maybe if we now get the right manager in we can stay up and continue with our mid table finishes and some cup runs. We have in my opinion a decent squad, they just need organisation which Sage doesn’t seem to know how to do that? Teams mentioned by others like Brentford and Bournemouth will like us fall away again. It’s how the premiership works for teams like us. Getting relegated is no guarantee we will come back. We need a new manager in now and to try our best to stay in this division. Up the Palace 🙂

 

[JessieJ]

The original post here just about covered all the essentials of where it has all gone so wrong. Subsequently others have also opined and with a good deal of logic. There is also imho something in the claim that other teams that have gatecrashed the trophy cartel have all had their playing assets wiped out via a mix of players wanting out to progress (i.e. receive more money), the wealthy simply buying to strip the gatecrasher of talent, or maybe even more valid that the said gatecrasher has to abide by the even more stringent UEFA rules financially and simply has to sell. Although it serves no purpose looking green-eyed at the current success of the "B" teams I do wonder how Bournemouth will cope should their Euro adventure extends to 2 seasons given that their income generation capacity is even worse than ours. Brighton? We'll see. I assume that they will follow us in the Conf. League so time will tell and they have also the idiots at Chelsea as a financial sponsor for the past few years. For us and the others that had the temerity to mix it, success is indeed a poisened chalice. It was fun though, wasn't it.

 

[Paul Salvage]

I think the simple truth is that we are a relatively small club that has over achieved. This is by way of staying in the Premier League for 14 years and then qualifying for Europe.
The vast sums of money needed to even stay in the league are ridiculous, and unless you have the same player recruitment success that the three B’s have then you are on a hiding to nothing.
This is then further compounded with the financial burden of playing in Europe.
I asked AI if it is worth it, and unless you reach the Champions League then a team of Palace size will desperately struggle.

So as I see it we have become victims of our own success. We reached Europe, which financially was a poisoned chalice. After winning a few trophies, some players think they are ready for Madrid and want out. The cost of average players to replace them is around £30-50million. Our current turnover is insufficient to continue to build both the squad and infrastructure.

This is not the first time Palace have had the opportunity to kick on. The difference this time is that we have had a sustained period in the top flight, and won 3 trophies.
Unless the concept of the Premier league and the cartels that run it changes, a team of our size will always eventually run aground.

See the Ai answer below!

Yes, reaching Europe makes massive financial sense, but only if it is the UEFA Champions League. For the lower-tier competitions—the Europa League and the Conference League—the financial equation is heavily conflicted and can sometimes even harm a mid-table club's domestic sustainability.
When evaluating whether European qualification makes financial sense for an English Premier League (EPL) side, the outcome depends entirely on which tournament they qualify for, balanced against squad costs and domestic financial regulations.
Substack·The Director's Inbox
The Gold Mine: UEFA Champions League
Qualifying for the Champions League is the ultimate financial driver in modern club football.

• • Base Windfall: Simply reaching the league phase guarantees a base participation fee of roughly £16.1 million (€18.6m) before a single ball is kicked.
    BBC +1
  • Performance Bonuses: Clubs earn an additional £1.8 million per win and £600,000 per draw in the league phase.
    BBC
  • The Scale: A successful run into the knockout stages easily pushes a club's total UEFA revenue past £45 million to £70 million, with finalists earning well over £100 million (such as Arsenal's projected £125m haul as finalists).
    Sky Sports +2
  • Commercial Growth: It dramatically boosts matchday revenue through additional high-profile home fixtures and serves as a massive magnet for lucrative global sponsorships.
    Facebook·WION +1

The Fool's Gold: Europa & Conference Leagues
For clubs that finish 5th through 7th (or 8th depending on cup winners), the financial reality is entirely different.
Eventmasters

[th]Competition[/th][th]Base Entry Fee[/th][th]Max Base Prize Money (Perfect Run)[/th] [td]Champions League[/td][td]~£16.1 million[/td][td]~£100+ million[/td] [td]Europa League[/td][td]~£3.7 million[/td][td]~£33 million[/td] [td]Conference League[/td][td]~£2.6 million[/td][td]~£23 million[/td]

The Europa League offers less than a quarter of the Champions League's base payout. The Conference League is even lower, with total potential earnings hovering around a modest £15–16 million. For a Premier League club, this revenue is relatively insignificant compared to domestic earnings—where moving up just one single place in the final Premier League table can be worth an estimated £3.76 million.
Substack·The Director's Inbox +2
The Hidden Hidden Costs & Trade-Offs
While the prize money drops sharply outside the Champions League, the operational expenses do not.

• • Squad Inflation & Fatigue: Playing in the lower European tiers adds at least 8 to 10 highly intense mid-week fixtures to the calendar. To avoid a domestic collapse, clubs are forced to invest heavily in squad depth. Buying more players and offering higher wages drastically increases the club's amortization charges and operating costs.
  • The "Domestic Trap": If the extra workload causes a club's thin squad to suffer injuries and drop 3 or 4 places in the Premier League table, the resulting loss in domestic merit prize money can completely wipe out the revenue they earned from playing in the Europa or Conference League.
  • Regulatory Compliance: The Premier League's implementation of the 85% Squad Cost Ratio (SCR)means clubs can only spend 85% of their revenues on squad costs. However, to actually play in Europe, clubs must comply with UEFA’s much stricter 70% Squad Cost Ratio. A mid-table club that accidentally qualifies for the Conference League may suddenly find itself forced to sell its best players just to artificially lower its wage bill and comply with UEFA's financial sustainability rules.
    BBC +4

The Verdict
Reaching the Champions League is a transformative financial jackpot that justifies any investment. However, reaching the Europa Conference League can be a financial trap for an unprepared mid-table Premier League club—bringing crushing fixture congestion, strict UEFA financial constraints, and negligible prize money that risks undermining their far more lucrative domestic campaign.
Substack·The Director's Inbox +1
Are you analyzing the financial outlook of a specific Premier League club, or would you like to look closer at how the UEFA value pillar distributes television money based on historical team coefficients?

 

[Paul Salvage]

The original post here just about covered all the essentials of where it has all gone so wrong. Subsequently others have also opined and with a good deal of logic. There is also imho something in the claim that other teams that have gatecrashed the trophy cartel have all had their playing assets wiped out via a mix of players wanting out to progress (i.e. receive more money), the wealthy simply buying to strip the gatecrasher of talent, or maybe even more valid that the said gatecrasher has to abide by the even more stringent UEFA rules financially and simply has to sell. Although it serves no purpose looking green-eyed at the current success of the "B" teams I do wonder how Bournemouth will cope should their Euro adventure extends to 2 seasons given that their income generation capacity is even worse than ours. Brighton? We'll see. I assume that they will follow us in the Conf. League so time will tell and they have also the idiots at Chelsea as a financial sponsor for the past few years. For us and the others that had the temerity to mix it, success is indeed a poisened chalice. It was fun though, wasn't it.

you got this in as I was typing.
Not wanting to steal your thoughts, but very much in agreement.

 

[KCeee]

I‘ve been thinking about this over the last few days and especially now with the international break and the loss to Liverpool.

I was thinking back to the FA cup winning team. That moment when everything came together. What a team that was and it seems like such a long time ago. It made me wonder how you go from that moment when the future looked bright to now where we sit rock bottom of the league in a dreadful state.

How does that happen? I realise its small little mistakes and decisions one after the other. It is not one big thing as such.

First was losing Dougie. No matter what people think, the set up with him worked more than it failed.

The major players leaving. MG, ML, Eze, Munoz.

The Manager turning into a complete self centred c*** and leaving.

2 of the best players that remained wanting out and one pretty much on strike.

A risk taken on trying to keep the project going with the appointment of an attacking manager but giving him none of the tools required to do what he was brought in to do.

The management above the manager trying to do things on the cheap and treating every transfer market like a Bedouin flea market instead of just getting business done.

This is what has got us here. We are at a tipping point. There are plenty of points to be had. Yesterday showed that with some better organisation there is a team there. We have some decent players. BUT the next couple of weeks will define our season and decide if we go down or not.

Keep Sage to save the fee of sacking him or hoping he turns it around is about as risky as it gets. By the time we can get help in at the back, I feel it would be too late. Appoint the wrong replacement and we are f***ed. I read about a couple of names with no experience… f*** that.

What Parish has got right in the past is appointing the correct fire fighter when needed at the exact right time to stabilise. I said this a few weeks ago. It wont be pretty but it’s what is required. Nobody wants to watch RoyBall. But I want to watch Palace at Millwall even less.

I really worry that we have made too many small decisions and are on a road to relegation which is so hard to take being where we looked to be going just a year and a half ago. It just shows what a house of cards most clubs of our size are. You would have hoped after 14 years we were more established than this but I guess not.

"self centred ****"?

I'd say OG was what every single one of us is... self-interested.

He left a club he didn't feel shared his level of ambition and feared he'd be forever stuck in a cycle of selling our best players and rebuilding.

I'd say, with hindsight, he made the right call.
.

 

[Palacesince64]

"self centred ****"?

I'd say OG was what every single one of us is... self-interested.

He left a club he didn't feel shared his level of ambition and feared he'd be forever stuck in a cycle of selling our best players and rebuilding.

I'd say, with hindsight, he made the right call.
.

He’s still a c***.

 

[Username]

I believe your understanding of the situation is correct.
I took it as Glasner alluding to the lack of professionalism at the club in acting in the way outlined, and he wasn’t the first manager to point this out .
Normal manager/ board tension or an observation with some merit?

Which is hilarious considering his own behaviour in public.

The point still stands that his expectations and demands for what he wanted from the club were directly compromised by his own lack of commitment. Had he signed the deal he was offered in the summer and THEN the Guehi thing happened then fair enough.

 

[Jacey]

The team needs building again, just as the team did before we won our trophies. We can’t be a Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and……….
We may never have a team again as good as the one where trophies were won but just maybe if we now get the right manager in we can stay up and continue with our mid table finishes and some cup runs. We have in my opinion a decent squad, they just need organisation which Sage doesn’t seem to know how to do that? Teams mentioned by others like Brentford and Bournemouth will like us fall away again. It’s how the premiership works for teams like us. Getting relegated is no guarantee we will come back. We need a new manager in now and to try our best to stay in this division. Up the Palace 🙂

F*uck,the Cup just stay up!!

 

[Palacesince64]

I think the simple truth is that we are a relatively small club that has over achieved. This is by way of staying in the Premier League for 14 years and then qualifying for Europe.
The vast sums of money needed to even stay in the league are ridiculous, and unless you have the same player recruitment success that the three B’s have then you are on a hiding to nothing.
This is then further compounded with the financial burden of playing in Europe.
I asked AI if it is worth it, and unless you reach the Champions League then a team of Palace size will desperately struggle.

So as I see it we have become victims of our own success. We reached Europe, which financially was a poisoned chalice. After winning a few trophies, some players think they are ready for Madrid and want out. The cost of average players to replace them is around £30-50million. Our current turnover is insufficient to continue to build both the squad and infrastructure.

This is not the first time Palace have had the opportunity to kick on. The difference this time is that we have had a sustained period in the top flight, and won 3 trophies.
Unless the concept of the Premier league and the cartels that run it changes, a team of our size will always eventually run aground.

See the Ai answer below!

Yes, reaching Europe makes massive financial sense, but only if it is the UEFA Champions League. For the lower-tier competitions—the Europa League and the Conference League—the financial equation is heavily conflicted and can sometimes even harm a mid-table club's domestic sustainability.
When evaluating whether European qualification makes financial sense for an English Premier League (EPL) side, the outcome depends entirely on which tournament they qualify for, balanced against squad costs and domestic financial regulations.
Substack·The Director's Inbox
The Gold Mine: UEFA Champions League
Qualifying for the Champions League is the ultimate financial driver in modern club football.

• • Base Windfall: Simply reaching the league phase guarantees a base participation fee of roughly £16.1 million (€18.6m) before a single ball is kicked.
    BBC +1
  • Performance Bonuses: Clubs earn an additional £1.8 million per win and £600,000 per draw in the league phase.
    BBC
  • The Scale: A successful run into the knockout stages easily pushes a club's total UEFA revenue past £45 million to £70 million, with finalists earning well over £100 million (such as Arsenal's projected £125m haul as finalists).
    Sky Sports +2
  • Commercial Growth: It dramatically boosts matchday revenue through additional high-profile home fixtures and serves as a massive magnet for lucrative global sponsorships.
    Facebook·WION +1

The Fool's Gold: Europa & Conference Leagues
For clubs that finish 5th through 7th (or 8th depending on cup winners), the financial reality is entirely different.
Eventmasters

[th]Competition[/th][th]Base Entry Fee[/th][th]Max Base Prize Money (Perfect Run)[/th] [td]Champions League[/td][td]~£16.1 million[/td][td]~£100+ million[/td] [td]Europa League[/td][td]~£3.7 million[/td][td]~£33 million[/td] [td]Conference League[/td][td]~£2.6 million[/td][td]~£23 million[/td]
The Europa League offers less than a quarter of the Champions League's base payout. The Conference League is even lower, with total potential earnings hovering around a modest £15–16 million. For a Premier League club, this revenue is relatively insignificant compared to domestic earnings—where moving up just one single place in the final Premier League table can be worth an estimated £3.76 million.
Substack·The Director's Inbox +2
The Hidden Hidden Costs & Trade-Offs
While the prize money drops sharply outside the Champions League, the operational expenses do not.

• • Squad Inflation & Fatigue: Playing in the lower European tiers adds at least 8 to 10 highly intense mid-week fixtures to the calendar. To avoid a domestic collapse, clubs are forced to invest heavily in squad depth. Buying more players and offering higher wages drastically increases the club's amortization charges and operating costs.
  • The "Domestic Trap": If the extra workload causes a club's thin squad to suffer injuries and drop 3 or 4 places in the Premier League table, the resulting loss in domestic merit prize money can completely wipe out the revenue they earned from playing in the Europa or Conference League.
  • Regulatory Compliance: The Premier League's implementation of the 85% Squad Cost Ratio (SCR)means clubs can only spend 85% of their revenues on squad costs. However, to actually play in Europe, clubs must comply with UEFA’s much stricter 70% Squad Cost Ratio. A mid-table club that accidentally qualifies for the Conference League may suddenly find itself forced to sell its best players just to artificially lower its wage bill and comply with UEFA's financial sustainability rules.
    BBC +4

The Verdict
Reaching the Champions League is a transformative financial jackpot that justifies any investment. However, reaching the Europa Conference League can be a financial trap for an unprepared mid-table Premier League club—bringing crushing fixture congestion, strict UEFA financial constraints, and negligible prize money that risks undermining their far more lucrative domestic campaign.
Substack·The Director's Inbox +1
Are you analyzing the financial outlook of a specific Premier League club, or would you like to look closer at how the UEFA value pillar distributes television money based on historical team coefficients?

Interesting perspective from AI. The Premier League and Sky have changed football dramatically to the point where it’s a playground for rich clubs and a minefield for the rest of us. Just hanging in there costs a fortune in transfer fees and wages while the stadium falls apart around us. Add in the demands of European football and it’s a slippery slope to relegation and financial ruin. The club would be crazy to spend hundreds of millions on a new stand while we sit bottom of the league. The sensible thing is to concentrate on survival in the PL this season without increasing our debt in January - perhaps sell to buy an experienced centre back- but be prepared for life in the championship should the worst happen. There was a time last season when I thought we might go down and reached the point where I wondered if that might not be a blessing in disguise. I find myself back there again earlier than anticipated.

 

[VinceHilaire]

I’d imagine that talks are going on now!

There will be no training and either it’s a clear the air discussion or thank you for your efforts.

If the rumours circulating are correct, some of the players are also looking for someone with a fresh approach!

 

[park the bus]

Interesting perspective from AI. The Premier League and Sky have changed football dramatically to the point where it’s a playground for rich clubs and a minefield for the rest of us. Just hanging in there costs a fortune in transfer fees and wages while the stadium falls apart around us. Add in the demands of European football and it’s a slippery slope to relegation and financial ruin. The club would be crazy to spend hundreds of millions on a new stand while we sit bottom of the league. The sensible thing is to concentrate on survival in the PL this season without increasing our debt in January - perhaps sell to buy an experienced centre back- but be prepared for life in the championship should the worst happen. There was a time last season when I thought we might go down and reached the point where I wondered if that might not be a blessing in disguise. I find myself back there again earlier than anticipated.

It's a cunning scam - "to play with us the entry fee is ££££££££££, are you sure you want to play?"

 

[Frickin Saweet]

I‘ve been thinking about this over the last few days and especially now with the international break and the loss to Liverpool.

I was thinking back to the FA cup winning team. That moment when everything came together. What a team that was and it seems like such a long time ago. It made me wonder how you go from that moment when the future looked bright to now where we sit rock bottom of the league in a dreadful state.

How does that happen? I realise its small little mistakes and decisions one after the other. It is not one big thing as such.

First was losing Dougie. No matter what people think, the set up with him worked more than it failed.

The major players leaving. MG, ML, Eze, Munoz.

The Manager turning into a complete self centred c*** and leaving.

2 of the best players that remained wanting out and one pretty much on strike.

A risk taken on trying to keep the project going with the appointment of an attacking manager but giving him none of the tools required to do what he was brought in to do.

The management above the manager trying to do things on the cheap and treating every transfer market like a Bedouin flea market instead of just getting business done.

This is what has got us here. We are at a tipping point. There are plenty of points to be had. Yesterday showed that with some better organisation there is a team there. We have some decent players. BUT the next couple of weeks will define our season and decide if we go down or not.

Keep Sage to save the fee of sacking him or hoping he turns it around is about as risky as it gets. By the time we can get help in at the back, I feel it would be too late. Appoint the wrong replacement and we are f***ed. I read about a couple of names with no experience… f*** that.

What Parish has got right in the past is appointing the correct fire fighter when needed at the exact right time to stabilise. I said this a few weeks ago. It wont be pretty but it’s what is required. Nobody wants to watch RoyBall. But I want to watch Palace at Millwall even less.

I really worry that we have made too many small decisions and are on a road to relegation which is so hard to take being where we looked to be going just a year and a half ago. It just shows what a house of cards most clubs of our size are. You would have hoped after 14 years we were more established than this but I guess not.

there are enough examples in recent(ish) history to tell you that a cup triumph can often be the start of the end, rather than the start of something more positive - Portsmouth, Leicester, Wigan. For me that FA Cup win was the culmination of my entire Palace supporting life.

For clubs like Palace it's rarely a springboard to better things.

That said, I do see our current plight as a blip and expect us to sort things out and get ourselves in a more comfortable place in the league. We probably appointed the wrong manager, based on the right reasons, that just didn't work out. Anyone who's employed anyone will tell you that a thorough recruitment process doesn't always get you the person you though you were hiring. We'll be ok.

 

[Steve Coops]

Blame parish and Co we had a great chance to really kick on instead we sell our best players and buy poor replacements lose the atmosphere at Selhurst with HF gone as well , the ground will never get updated , we are a very bad run club and need new owners quick before we slide down into the lower tilers

 

[Paul Salvage]

Interesting perspective from AI. The Premier League and Sky have changed football dramatically to the point where it’s a playground for rich clubs and a minefield for the rest of us. Just hanging in there costs a fortune in transfer fees and wages while the stadium falls apart around us. Add in the demands of European football and it’s a slippery slope to relegation and financial ruin. The club would be crazy to spend hundreds of millions on a new stand while we sit bottom of the league. The sensible thing is to concentrate on survival in the PL this season without increasing our debt in January - perhaps sell to buy an experienced centre back- but be prepared for life in the championship should the worst happen. There was a time last season when I thought we might go down and reached the point where I wondered if that might not be a blessing in disguise. I find myself back there again earlier than anticipated.

I started a thread not long into the start of the season pretty much saying what I miss about the Championship and in effect questioned if we would almost be better going down.
(I did have a few negative comments 😂)
I fully accept that this is not the best position for the club from a financial point. However have we just become another club with the delusion that the Prem is the be all and end all in football.
Ironically in business, turnover is just about vanity, if you are losing money every year you will eventually stop trading! Football seems to have this skewed impression that it is ok to continually trade at a loss.

 

[TheBigToePunt]

You can’t ask “How has it gone so wrong?” without also asking “How the hell did it last this long and go so well?”, because the two are connected.

Start with the context:

The idea we should have ‘kicked on’ at any stage is wrong. Consider the economics. Each year the teams above you get more money than you, so clubs who have better teams than yours get to strengthen more than you do. With each year, their advantage over you gets greater.

It is natural to want ‘progress’, but to say we should aim for 15th for a few years, then 12th for a few more, then for the top 8, and on and on is ignorant of basic financial logic. We cannot ‘kick on’. Long term mid table is as good as it gets, and not just for Palace, but for Fulham, Bournemouth, Brentford, and so on. Brighton are the media darlings, but they are the epitome of accepting your mid-table place by setting yourself up as a feeder club. The best model to follow to get to the EPL is also the most self-limiting once you get there.

That said…

As the teams above us get further from reach, so too do we get further away from those beneath us. Hence, we can cherry-pick the best players from QPR, Reading, Blackburn, Millwall etc in a way we could never have done if we were in the Championship.

The end result? The potential for a permanent status quo.

It seems to me that once a club establishes themselves in premier league mid-table, they could stay there forever. Buy good young players from those below you, get good years out of them, sell them to the big boys. This weakens the teams below you, strengthens those above, and keeps you right in the middle.

To me, what Palace are ‘guilty’ of, if anything, is trying to find a little wriggle-room in all this.

We knew we were always going to sell assets like Guehi, Olise, Eze, Lacroix etc, not because we lack ambition, but because they would only sign for us on that basis, and would not sign new contracts past a certain point. The FA Cup final team was never going to be kept together. It was successful because everyone involved, from players to manager, wanted to use us as a stepping stone in the best way: Come here, do well, move on.

What Palace did was to try and keep the positive momentum going. We could have sold Guehi, Eze, and Mateta (who we did sell, let’s remember) and spent the money on five or six young hopefuls, weakening the team and beginning the cycle again. Be honest, though: How many of us would have moaned about that? We had a good team, had won a trophy, and were amongst the favourites to win in Europe. The club tried to go for it with the Johnson and JSL signings. You can add Nketiah, and perhaps Pino to that. We all raised an eyebrow at the fees, but very few of us thought they would be disasters as players. They were road-tested to some degree, and in their prime.

In other words, Palace stepped outside of their lane. They saw a one in a lifetime chance to go for it a bit. They tried to not be a feeder club for a change.

I think the same is true of appointing Sage rather than Dyche or Frank. Parish didn’t want the team to get that far then go back into its shell. He didn’t want us all to die wondering. He is, I think, still a bit of a dreamer in that way.

Ultimately, none of it has worked. In getting back into Europe we made our finances even tighter due to UEFA FFP, and had to sell Lacroix when we surely would have wanted to keep him for another year. We have bought too many average players in the hope of having squad depth, but then, how many on here would have moaned if we didn’t try to prepare for Europe? We bought young hopefuls like Khalili, Gozo, Osario etc when we needed senior pros, but developing and selling at a profit is the only way Palace can have any kind of transfer budget.

In hindsight, we should have battened down the hatches this summer and just gone back to basics it terms of managerial appointment, squad building, and general expectations. It’s easy to say that now, though. None of it was mad, or negligent. It just hasn't worked.

Anyway, I don’t think the damage is bound to be fatal. If a new manager gets into the players and they pick up 4 points from the next two games whilst playing coherently, everything will appear a bit more rosy. The promised land of 15th – 12th may beckon.

The key is probably in recognising the value of that mid-table place, the risks involved in trying to push on, and just how finely balanced everything is.

 

[samprior]

Freedman was a foundational pillar in the structure. His history previously as player, manager, then DOF, with irreplaceable experience and knowledge of the club. His departure left a gaping hole that hasn't been filled.

I read some interesting comments the other day questioning why we didn't promote Ben Stevens who'd worked for a long time under Dougie. He's since become Swansea's Sporting Director and seems to be doing a good job

Obviously everything is easier in hindsight, but I was sceptical of Hobbs from the beginning. Did it make sense to bring someone in from Wolves who were already on the decline. I'll never get over the fee we paid for Stand-Larsen either.

 

[JHB]

I read some interesting comments the other day questioning why we didn't promote Ben Stevens who'd worked for a long time under Dougie. He's since become Swansea's Sporting Director and seems to be doing a good job

Obviously everything is easier in hindsight, but I was sceptical of Hobbs from the beginning. Did it make sense to bring someone in from Wolves who were already on the decline. I'll never get over the fee we paid for Stand-Larsen either.

We definitely over paid for JSL. However, at the time JPM was going and I think Nketiah was long term injured. We needed to bring in a striker. Whether we could have got somebody better, JSL cheaper or a loan I don’t know but we needed to do something. Johnson on the other hand …

 

[Teddy Eagle]

You can’t ask “How has it gone so wrong?” without also asking “How the hell did it last this long and go so well?”, because the two are connected.

Start with the context:

The idea we should have ‘kicked on’ at any stage is wrong. Consider the economics. Each year the teams above you get more money than you, so clubs who have better teams than yours get to strengthen more than you do. With each year, their advantage over you gets greater.

It is natural to want ‘progress’, but to say we should aim for 15th for a few years, then 12th for a few more, then for the top 8, and on and on is ignorant of basic financial logic. We cannot ‘kick on’. Long term mid table is as good as it gets, and not just for Palace, but for Fulham, Bournemouth, Brentford, and so on. Brighton are the media darlings, but they are the epitome of accepting your mid-table place by setting yourself up as a feeder club. The best model to follow to get to the EPL is also the most self-limiting once you get there.

That said…

As the teams above us get further from reach, so too do we get further away from those beneath us. Hence, we can cherry-pick the best players from QPR, Reading, Blackburn, Millwall etc in a way we could never have done if we were in the Championship.

The end result? The potential for a permanent status quo.

It seems to me that once a club establishes themselves in premier league mid-table, they could stay there forever. Buy good young players from those below you, get good years out of them, sell them to the big boys. This weakens the teams below you, strengthens those above, and keeps you right in the middle.

To me, what Palace are ‘guilty’ of, if anything, is trying to find a little wriggle-room in all this.

We knew we were always going to sell assets like Guehi, Olise, Eze, Lacroix etc, not because we lack ambition, but because they would only sign for us on that basis, and would not sign new contracts past a certain point. The FA Cup final team was never going to be kept together. It was successful because everyone involved, from players to manager, wanted to use us as a stepping stone in the best way: Come here, do well, move on.

What Palace did was to try and keep the positive momentum going. We could have sold Guehi, Eze, and Mateta (who we did sell, let’s remember) and spent the money on five or six young hopefuls, weakening the team and beginning the cycle again. Be honest, though: How many of us would have moaned about that? We had a good team, had won a trophy, and were amongst the favourites to win in Europe. The club tried to go for it with the Johnson and JSL signings. You can add Nketiah, and perhaps Pino to that. We all raised an eyebrow at the fees, but very few of us thought they would be disasters as players. They were road-tested to some degree, and in their prime.

In other words, Palace stepped outside of their lane. They saw a one in a lifetime chance to go for it a bit. They tried to not be a feeder club for a change.

I think the same is true of appointing Sage rather than Dyche or Frank. Parish didn’t want the team to get that far then go back into its shell. He didn’t want us all to die wondering. He is, I think, still a bit of a dreamer in that way.

Ultimately, none of it has worked. In getting back into Europe we made our finances even tighter due to UEFA FFP, and had to sell Lacroix when we surely would have wanted to keep him for another year. We have bought too many average players in the hope of having squad depth, but then, how many on here would have moaned if we didn’t try to prepare for Europe? We bought young hopefuls like Khalili, Gozo, Osario etc when we needed senior pros, but developing and selling at a profit is the only way Palace can have any kind of transfer budget.

In hindsight, we should have battened down the hatches this summer and just gone back to basics it terms of managerial appointment, squad building, and general expectations. It’s easy to say that now, though. None of it was mad, or negligent. It just hasn't worked.

Anyway, I don’t think the damage is bound to be fatal. If a new manager gets into the players and they pick up 4 points from the next two games whilst playing coherently, everything will appear a bit more rosy. The promised land of 15th – 12th may beckon.

The key is probably in recognising the value of that mid-table place, the risks involved in trying to push on, and just how finely balanced everything is.

A very good summation. The old saying be careful what you wish for comes to mind and at the moment 12th looks a very enticing prospect.