Crystal Palace v Everton Match Thread

[MrRobbo]

Games are mainly won on fine margins in the PL, so when your left-back bizarrely provides the opposition with an assist and one of your forwards hits the bar from six-yards you sometimes have to say it was just unfortunate. I genuinely don't know what more people expect from this squad? Of course OG isn't beyond criticism but it does sometimes feel like some people are desperate for him to slip up and prove they were right for being critical earlier in the season. After watching Everton all I could think was thank f*ck we didn't end up with Moyes. He takes all the joy out of football and reduces it to being just about points.

Indeed.

TM/Lerma dont make that mistake and Sarr scores, we win that game.

But I do get the wider point of pretty poor form at home.

That being said, teams around mid table win a few and lose a few. Every time you win a few, you think, of only we could win the next couple we'd be 8th. But you dont, or at least not often.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

Dermot Gallagher on Ref Watch repeated a point made by Mike Dean on Saturday about VAR having a slight problem at Selhurst due to the position of the cameras (or something) which is why JPMs goal took so long to allow when it looked straightforward. Why this is more of an issue there than anywhere else wasn't really explained.
He also reckoned the linesman delayed flagging the ball out of play until the goal had been scored knowing VAR would then get involved if he was wrong - which is fair enough I suppose.

 

[JHB]

Dermot Gallagher on Ref Watch repeated a point made by Mike Dean on Saturday about VAR having a slight problem at Selhurst due to the position of the cameras (or something) which is why JPMs goal took so long to allow when it looked straightforward. Why this is more of an issue there than anywhere else wasn't really explained.
He also reckoned the linesman delayed flagging the ball out of play until the goal had been scored knowing VAR would then get involved if he was wrong - which is fair enough I suppose.

It does make you chuckle doesn’t it that a multi billion pound sport has issues on where to stick a couple of cameras.

 

[Teddy Eagle]

It does make you chuckle doesn’t it that a multi billion pound sport has issues on where to stick a couple of cameras.

Par for the course with us. Why make life easy? Maybe we're waiting for the ground developments to reposition the cameras. Maybe not either.

 

[pssguy]

As someone mentioned earlier, why should it matter if the ball goes out of play in the air? If a placekicker hooks one that goes between the posts in an American Footballer or a golfer fades one over the rough onto the fairway that does not get disallowed.
All it does is lead to contentious issues

 

[Phil’s Barber]

Maybe it was PSR like Newcastle had to sell Anderson and Minteh when they didn't want to.

It can’t have been, we only got £1M for him. £1M would not have made any impact on PSR.

 

[pssguy]

Completely agree although i can't see OG changing.

I am trying to think which Premier League teams consistently play 3 at the back and the obvious one is Man Utd. where Amorim is equally stubborn and unsuccessful
I think people favour Glasner due to his pleasant personality and the fact that he isn't Hodgson. But other than the rigid formation, he also has weaknesses in the rift with Holding - who we could certainly do with on the bench now - and obsession with Kamada

 

[JHB]

As someone mentioned earlier, why should it matter if the ball goes out of play in the air? If a placekicker hooks one that goes between the posts in an American Footballer or a golfer fades one over the rough onto the fairway that does not get disallowed.
All it does is lead to contentious issues

You’d need to be careful with this though and have an accompanying law that no player can play the ball while they are out of play. If you didn’t you start seeing all sorts of corner routines with the ball deliberately kicked out for players to head it back in from beyond the dead ball line in order to change the angle of attack, take defenders out of the game, put it beyond the reach of the keeper etc. The messing around at corners is already one of the less appealing parts of modern football. Don’t really want more of it

 

[est1905]

Games are mainly won on fine margins in the PL, so when your left-back bizarrely provides the opposition with an assist and one of your forwards hits the bar from six-yards you sometimes have to say it was just unfortunate. I genuinely don't know what more people expect from this squad? Of course OG isn't beyond criticism but it does sometimes feel like some people are desperate for him to slip up and prove they were right for being critical earlier in the season. After watching Everton all I could think was thank f*ck we didn't end up with Moyes. He takes all the joy out of football and reduces it to being just about points.

Well put, completely agreed on all points

 

[Eagleman13]

I am trying to think which Premier League teams consistently play 3 at the back and the obvious one is Man Utd. where Amorim is equally stubborn and unsuccessful
I think people favour Glasner due to his pleasant personality and the fact that he isn't Hodgson. But other than the rigid formation, he also has weaknesses in the rift with Holding - who we could certainly do with on the bench now - and obsession with Kamada

This w/e Forest, Soton, us, Wolves & Manure all played 3 at the back.

 

[Painter]

Much like Viera in his first season then? All of it is true but we will again end up on about 45 points same as every other season. I’m not saying OG is bad or anything like that, just that where it matters, in points, we are about where we’ve been for the last decade. Now that is ok and probably where we are going to be given our resources. However, it does show we haven’t really progressed that much

The standard in the Premier League has increased, our current squad is possibly the strongest we have had, but its just kept pace with the better standard.
Yet again the 3 teams that came up will go down again the the second year running.

 

[ex hibitionist]

The standard in the Premier League has increased, our current squad is possibly the strongest we have had, but its just kept pace with the better standard.
Yet again the 3 teams that came up will go down again the the second year running.

Absolutely, the fact that we always finish in the same position is strangely misleading, our squad is far stronger now than when we came up, and back then the difference between 10th and 7th was massive, and between 7th and 6th even bigger. But the eternal top six has crumbled, it's only a top two now and we're not far off Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton who are vying for Europe - in fact we've won one, drawn one and lost one to them this season. We're much closer to winning a cup or having a serious go at European qualification than we were ten years ago. I think we'll make Europe within the next two seasons if we keep Ollie, and I've had a modest bet on us at 20/1 for the cup - just missed the 25s b4 the Donny game.

 

[Dogburger]

Dermot Gallagher on Ref Watch repeated a point made by Mike Dean on Saturday about VAR having a slight problem at Selhurst due to the position of the cameras (or something) which is why JPMs goal took so long to allow when it looked straightforward. Why this is more of an issue there than anywhere else wasn't really explained.
He also reckoned the linesman delayed flagging the ball out of play until the goal had been scored knowing VAR would then get involved if he was wrong - which is fair enough I suppose.

So Gallagher says the lino delayed flagging in case he was wrong which means he wasn't sure that he was right .
He guessed .

I didn't know there was a problem with the VAR at Selhurst (personally I think there is a problem with VAR full stop) so it will be interesting to see how it handles the semi automatic system being brought in .Our first game with the new system will be the cup tie v Millwall

 

[Painter]

Absolutely, the fact that we always finish in the same position is strangely misleading, our squad is far stronger now than when we came up, and back then the difference between 10th and 7th was massive, and between 7th and 6th even bigger. But the eternal top six has crumbled, it's only a top two now and we're not far off Bournemouth, Fulham and Brighton who are vying for Europe - in fact we've won one, drawn one and lost one to them this season. We're much closer to winning a cup or having a serious go at European qualification than we were ten years ago. I think we'll make Europe within the next two seasons if we keep Ollie, and I've had a modest bet on us at 20/1 for the cup - just missed the 25s b4 the Donny game.

He hasn't a better record than Roy or Vieria, just plays a more attractive style with better players. No chance we will make Europe, the competition is too strong and we cant win at home.

 

[Eagleman13]

So Gallagher says the lino delayed flagging in case he was wrong which means he wasn't sure that he was right .
He guessed .

I didn't know there was a problem with the VAR at Selhurst (personally I think there is a problem with VAR full stop) so it will be interesting to see how it handles the semi automatic system being brought in .Our first game with the new system will be the cup tie v Millwall

Gallagher also said that the linesman knew/thought/hoped VAR would back him up/ over-rule. The officials are all relying on VAR now & not doing the jobs they trained to do, sad state of affairs.

 

[dreamwaverider]

So Gallagher says the lino delayed flagging in case he was wrong which means he wasn't sure that he was right .
He guessed .

I didn't know there was a problem with the VAR at Selhurst (personally I think there is a problem with VAR full stop) so it will be interesting to see how it handles the semi automatic system being brought in .Our first game with the new system will be the cup tie v Millwall

The VAR readers said it was impossible for them to judge the decision so they left it to an on field referee decision. The ref acknowledged the linesman's flag but obviously the ref could not judge if the ball was out. So the decision was made by a linesman who by his own admission was really not sure. Great.

 

[NEILLO]

Games are mainly won on fine margins in the PL, so when your left-back bizarrely provides the opposition with an assist and one of your forwards hits the bar from six-yards you sometimes have to say it was just unfortunate. I genuinely don't know what more people expect from this squad? Of course OG isn't beyond criticism but it does sometimes feel like some people are desperate for him to slip up and prove they were right for being critical earlier in the season. After watching Everton all I could think was thank f*ck we didn't end up with Moyes. He takes all the joy out of football and reduces it to being just about points.

Sarr has one of the worst conversion of ‘ good ‘ chances stats in the Premier.

Had he taken the chance it would of course have been a totally different game . We may even have won it. And I really wish we had because it would spare the usual debate about OG’s tactics whenever we lose a game.

The facts are that at PL level you can expect mistakes to be punished. Making even one howler in a game can result in defeat.

Our home form since promotion in 2013 has been pretty poor and seems to be a problem that has proven difficult for successive managers.

This season hasn’t been helped by having those players that can make a difference, namely Eze and Wharton, unavailable for large parts .

OG is aware and has acknowledged that he needs to find a solution - it will be interesting to see what he comes up with

 

[pssguy]

This w/e Forest, Soton, us, Wolves & Manure all played 3 at the back.

Thanks. Not a point between them

 

[park the bus]

Thanks. Not a point between them

Ha yes. It's not the be all and end all of tactical systems - to play it right one needs the correct players in the correct positions, and OG's team is clearly a work in progress.

 

[ex hibitionist]

Ha yes. It's not the be all and end all of tactical systems - to play it right one needs the correct players in the correct positions, and OG's team is clearly a work in progress.

Contemporary football now relies on the high press and two holding midfielders, so having four at the back is too much numbers-wise, there's enough protection from the rest of the team. Playing with a back three frees up an extra player - the downside is that sometimes you can have three central defenders marking only one striker, but the defence can adjust - either of the two defenders either side of the central pivot can go wide into the full back position when necessary. There are pros and cons with three or four at the back, but what attracts me to a back three is that teams defend higher up the pitch these days so you can have an extra player helping offensively, or just having wingbacks rather than full backs gives more options and support offensively while not diminishing the team defensively. Three at the back is harder to organise some amateur coaches have told me, but professionals should surely cope.