Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Life after Alan Pardew for Crystal Palace almost makes you wonder why they got rid of him in the first place. Yes he was perhaps in the midst in one of his well known negative streak of results but thing were not as bad as there are under Sam Allardyce.
Allardyce was meant to be the firefighter, the man heralded as someone who has done it all before. But it seems as if Chairman Steve Parrish may have bought some fire damaged goods as his Crystal Palace find themselves precariously second bottom in the table.
Today they travel to The Bet365 Stadium looking for a much needed three points to get them back out of the bottom three and more importantly erase the memory of that embarrassing 4-0 defeat to fellow strugglers Sunderland last weekend.
A result which raised a lot of eyebrows and also caused a lot of embarrassment for Allardyce as he was soundly beaten by familiar faces. It was not forgetting Allardyce who kept Sunderland up last season in similar circumstances, by 3:45pm last Saturday I bet he wish he did not bother.
If results keep going against him he and probably everyone else connected with the club will have wished he never took the Palace job as they have somehow gone further backwards then they did after life under Alan Pardew. Three points away at Stoke would be incredibly welcome this Afternoon.
If they are to do so they will have to get the better of a Stoke side who are coasting in mid-table. You almost get the feeling that their season is done and dusted. After such a bad start to the season then their cannot be too many complaints with their current 11th place in the table.
Last Saturday saw them receive first defeat in 5 matches as Tony Pulis got the better of one his former employers at The Hawthorns. In a game which was dominated by Saido Berahino in the build up it was his former club that ended up on top thanks to James Morrison’s solitary goal of the game.
Stoke won’t be easy to beat though even if they are nearly assured Premier League safety for another season but from a Palace point of view these are the games in which they are going to have to pick up points if they are to have any chance of survival come May.
Not only that but everyone from chairman, manager and fans are going to demand that they bounce back from that 4-0 loss last Saturday in the best possible way. Whether they can break down Mark Hughes’ men remains to be seen but I have a feeling that they will at least get something from this.
They have to raise their performance after last weekend and at least give their fans a glimmer of hope. What does not help the situation is the fact that other teams around them are now picking up not just points but wins. I think Palace will have to make do with just a share of the points this Afternoon, it’s a draw for me.
