We need to be realistic, last season is blinding us

cjh97

Member
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England
Sorry in advance for this long post but as a passionate Palace fan, it’s hard to accept how things are at the moment. We are in a mess. A proper relegation mess.

On current form, West Ham and Forest are better than us. Simple as that. If nothing changes, Championship football next season is a very real possibility. 11 games without a win is beyond unacceptable, it’s sackable form at most clubs.

Yes, it’s easy to point fingers at the board for lack of signings or for selling Eze and Guehi, but the responsibility has to sit with Glasner. He shows zero adaptability. Same shape, same patterns, same substitutions, week after week. We are completely predictable now and teams don’t even need to be good to play against us, just organised.

Most clubs would have pulled the trigger weeks ago. The fact we haven’t either suggests:

1. The board are scared they can’t find the “right” replacement, or

2. Typical Palace indecision and lack of bravery

Neither is comforting. At this point, even McCarthy as interim could spark something. It genuinely could not be worse than this.

I’ve lost a lot of respect for Glasner, and for a few players too. The FA Cup win feels like a curse. It papered over cracks and inflated egos, including the manager’s. His mid-season announcement that he’s leaving is still baffling. That should never have come out when it did. All it’s done is create uncertainty, kill motivation and drain belief and you can see it every single week.

I see comments on here suggesting we shouldn’t accept anything less than £50m+ for Mateta, those people need to give their heads a wobble. Anyone who’s played football at even a half-decent level can see it: technically, he’s very limited. His first touch is inconsistent, link-up play is poor, and he’s not clinical. He thrived early under Glasner because we were unpredictable, a honeymoon period. That’s gone.
He also clearly thinks he’s better than Palace now, with one eye firmly on a France call-up at the World Cup. Let’s be serious, he’s got no chance. There are at least four French strikers comfortably ahead of him. Maybe Zaha was right to laugh (if you know, you know).

If the reported £30m offers from Juventus or Atalanta were real and we turned them down, that’s madness. With Sarr back, he can play centrally. Uche is technically better than Mateta. We are not limited without him, if anything, we’re limited with him.

Wharton has been painful to watch for months. His head has clearly gone. He’s already mentally at a “bigger club”. The England call-up came far too early and his weaknesses are now obvious: positional discipline, decision-making under pressure, and switching off defensively. I hate to say it, but his big move will end badly.
Pino looks completely checked out too. Whether that’s down to Glasner, the mood around the club, or both, who knows but his body language says everything.

The most worrying thing? There is no clear direction. Palace are not a club that bounces straight back from the Championship. We don’t have the infrastructure, the ambition or the ownership mindset for that. The next few months are absolutely massive.

The idea that we could be FA Cup holders and relegated in the same season no longer feels unrealistic, and that should terrify everyone associated with the club.

We need change. Now. Not in the summer, not after it’s too late. Small steps immediately, starting with the manager.
 

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