Sage in or out

[sprites]

Kamada was not 'woeful' before the arrival of Sage. You have an irrational dislike of Kamada and never miss an opportunity to mention it.

Calm down sunshine, it was actually a compliment directed at Kamada. He has drastically improved under Sage and is now a useful member of the team. I'm not sure how you managed to take it the opposite way.

 

[TomH_CPFC]

Calm down sunshine, it was actually a compliment directed at Kamada. He has drastically improved under Sage and is now a useful member of the team. I'm not sure how you managed to take it the opposite way.

Yes, a backhanded compliment, 'sunshine'.

 

[syd snot]

The Sun plumb has gone early.
Sage is signing a contract extension and we're getting Vinnie Jones in as defensive coach.

 

[doombear]

Kamada was not 'woeful' before the arrival of Sage. He was an integral part of our most successful squad ever and had a great partnership with Wharton. You have an irrational dislike of Kamada and never miss an opportunity to mention it.

It's because Kamada kept Sprites' beloved Hughes out of the team.

 

[doombear]

The Sun plumb has gone early.
Sage is signing a contract extension and we're getting Vinnie Jones in as defensive coach.

He'll ensure they're all on the ball(s?) 😉

 

[sprites]

It's because Kamada kept Sprites' beloved Hughes out of the team.

That's part of it, yes. But Timber is also keeping Hughes out of the team and I'm not hating on him, am I? Because Timber's come in and worked super hard and looked great for the most part.

Anyway, let's move on. What was intended to be a rare comment of approval for Sage has turned into a mini slagging match.

 

[Mathers]

What are we playing at? Very obvious that Sage is getting sacked but it’s now 2 days since the last game and no announcement. Writing has been on the wall since the Brighton game and any genuinely, professional team would have started contingency planning weeks ago.

Used to have a lot of respect for Parish. He now seems to be surrounding himself with amateurs like Hobbs and Lacey. The inevitable outcome is that we look like a joke club.

 

[Irisheagle87]

The Samaritans were engaged

 

[elgin eeagle]

I’ve been in the Sage-out camp for a while now, but I don’t think things are necessarily as black and white as they appear.

Has he been let down by recruitment? Absolutely, to an extent. He’s had some very good players sold out from under him, and the situations with Mateta and Sarr certainly haven’t helped.

But equally, he came to Palace with around 100 games of top-flight management under his belt. Appointing someone to manage a Premier League club that had just become European champions, largely off the back of what he’d achieved in one successful season, was always going to be a calculated risk.

And that’s the thing. We’re effectively paying for his learning curve and education.

What we don’t need at the moment is a manager who has only ever experienced things going swimmingly well. We need someone who understands transitions, adversity and how to adapt.

Think about our recent history. Hodgson came in after Frank de Boer. Hodgson came back after Vieira. Glasner then took the foundations of Hodgson’s side and moved us forward considerably. Sage, on the other hand, has inherited a difficult situation but really hasn’t helped himself.

Put it another way.

Imagine Palace had sold those players in the summer and then appointed Russell Martin. A highly rated coach (well at one time) with one particularly successful season behind him, but otherwise a fairly mixed managerial record, albeit with more experience.

If Martin had rigidly stuck to his philosophy of pass, pass, pass, pass, pass, regardless of the personnel available, would everyone be defending him? I very much doubt it.

And therein lies the problem with Sage, and with system managers generally. Their system becomes something of a drug. They become so wedded to it that they struggle to recognise when the opposition has the quality to exploit its weaknesses.

The Premier League is built around speed, transitions and exploiting space. You simply cannot afford to be naive about that. Sunday was a perfect example.

In the first half against Liverpool, I thought we looked really tight. We looked organised, disciplined and genuinely competitive. Yes, we conceded, but there was a clear structure to what we were doing.

Then, in the second half, we started reverting to our usual approach. We opened up, left space behind and, lo and behold, conceded further goals. Once again, the opposition exploited the spaces we were leaving.

Simon Jordan summed up Palace beautifully on talkSPORT recently. I don’t listen to it particularly often, but I caught his comments about the traditional profile of Crystal Palace.

We’re a gritty football club. Historically, we’ve had one, two or three outstanding individuals, but they’ve generally been players we’ve developed or helped turn into stars. Your Andy Johnsons, Bolasies, Zahas, Ezes and Olises.

But the teams were never entirely built around those individuals. the foundations were defensive solidity, organisation and hard work. You made yourselves difficult to beat, and then you gave your talented attacking players the freedom to make the difference.

That’s fundamentally what Palace have been about for years.

Now, we don’t currently have the same calibre of attacking player that we’ve enjoyed in recent seasons. But that makes defensive organisation even more important, not less. And that’s my biggest criticism of Sage.

You can blame recruitment. You can blame injuries. You can blame the loss of key players. All of those arguments have merit.

But you cannot continually set up a team in a way that exposes its weaknesses, watch opponents exploit those weaknesses week after week, and then act surprised when the same thing happens again.

Sunday demonstrated that we can look organised and competitive when we’re disciplined. The moment we started opening things up, we were vulnerable again.

A good manager has a philosophy. A very good manager knows when that philosophy needs adapting to the players he actually has.

At the moment, I don’t think Sage has demonstrated that ability nearly enough, And ultimately, that’s why I’ve been in the Sage-out camp. Not because everything is his fault, because it clearly isn’t, but because he doesn’t appear to be learning quickly enough from the things that are within his control.

its a shame Sage wasnt this tactical in matches. Although it does seem like he is holding all the cards here. Which also highlights the absurdity of manager contracts which reward failure, rather than success. Oh for another Sir Steve Coppell at this point. Someone who actually wants to be at Palace and who would be happy in his work enough to want to work without the need for a contract.

 

[mtp1958]

What are we playing at? Very obvious that Sage is getting sacked but it’s now 2 days since the last game and no announcement. Writing has been on the wall since the Brighton game and any genuinely, professional team would have started contingency planning weeks ago.

Used to have a lot of respect for Parish. He now seems to be surrounding himself with amateurs like Hobbs and Lacey. The inevitable outcome is that we look like a joke club.

You do realise we have always been the target of jokes by other fans . When it looked like we was going under not down but under I was getting it all the time . Its our DNA but it always taste sweeter when we beat these teams . For the last 14 years all ive heard is your going down from other fans . So relax we always come out fighting its just the Palace way .