It’s a damning indictment of our current transfer policy. If the reports are accurate and our manager is personally phoning players he rates in an attempt to persuade them to join Palace, it suggests there is very little strategic planning or contingency built into our recruitment process.
Rather than having a clear, long term succession plan for key positions and identifying potential replacements well in advance, it seems we are continually reacting to situations once managers or players make it clear they want to leave. That kind of reactive approach inevitably puts the club on the back foot and makes it far harder to negotiate from a position of strength.
For a club that wants to establish itself at the top end of the Premier League, recruitment needs to be proactive, structured and aligned with a long term footballing strategy, not driven by last minute necessity.
Amen