Dont think you can argue with anything in that post

“That’s a joke son, I say, that’s a joke.” “Nice boy, but he’s sharp as a throw pillow.” “He’s so dumb he thinks a Mexican border pays rent” “ “Son… I say, son, some people are so narrow minded they can look through a keyhole with both eyes.”__ Forhorn Leghorn

Top post Mate - agree entirely..!!

Last nights game was there for the taking - we pressed well first half - but second half for whatever reason - Roy reverted to old Roy and just tried to hang on to/for the win..!! Why change something that is working - just don’t get it..!!

IMO - problem you have is that I’m fairly sure - Parish sees Southgate as next Manager - he ain’t going to be available until after the Euros..!!

In my mind this was always Parish’s plan - Roy for another season then Southgate - think Roy knows it too - hence he’s comments his done with Palace at the end of the season.

We ain’t going to go down - but Roy’s tactics and selections - mean we ain’t going forward either - if anything we’re going backwards..!!

So question - does Parish rip up the plan and appoint someone like Cooper - or stick with it - in the knowledge that it’s going to be more of the same for the rest of the season - but we’ll stay up - then change in the summer..??

If it’s the latter - it’s going to be painful for the rest of the season..!!

Personally - think time for change is now - but depends on how Parish sees it..!!

COYP

Against a strong team that creates plenty of chances in a game, for the first half Palace played well. Tactically sound and the plan being well executed by the players. We just about deserved the lead.

Now here's where you and I differ. You resort to your usual Hodgson is to blame for everything position. Do you seriously think he instructed his players to play deeper and deeper in the second half ? If it truly was a case of just hanging on for the win then he would not have brought Eze on, it would have been Schlupp. Having said that, I would not have taken Ayew off in the first place.

Brighton got a rocket from de Zerbi at half time and sent his players back out early as well as making substitutions. It worked for them. They moved the ball quicker and were a vast improvement on their first half performance. If we outplayed them first half, they did the same to us second half. Even then, if Eze had showed more composure in front of goal he could have made it really hard for them by putting us 2-0 up.

I'm glad to see it's slowly dawning on some on here that the real ' Villain of the Piece ' is the man that elected for another year of Hodgson. And that's Steve Parish. His public utterances and what he actually does rarely seem to tally these days.

You talk of '' ripping up the plan '' but I'm not convinced there is a plan. Not beyond just continuing to stay in the PL. You're making guesses about Southgate ( for a few reasons I think it's highly unlikely ) and as for Cooper, his main attraction in my opinion is his availability should we wish to appoint now.

If we can keep Olise and Eze fit and - maybe i'm being over optimistic here - we have a good transfer window, then the second half of the season can be better than what we have seen so far.

Old, Ungifted and White

So the game against our friends from the south coast marks seven without a win and nearly four months without one at home.

One win in nine at home (our team is better than this !!) is a joke yet every game seems to be spent watching the clock run down, awaiting the obvious equaliser or worse from the opposition.

However, if your sole strategy starting the second half one up is to sit and invite the opposition onto you and not try and influence the game, then we are not going to win too many.

Also, we have been at this level for a number of years now yet why do we continue to give every opposition so much respect, as if we were a newly-promoted side ?? Perhaps it is the fact that this team is not particularly good at pressing the ball !!

Roy has done historically a decent job for the club, even if last season's results were inflated by the quality of the opposition but his ideas are stale and outdated and his substitutions poor, for example the other night, taking off the industrious Ayew and replacing him with a clearly not fully fit Eze who unfortunately gave way the ball away in the build up to their equaliser.

Some important decisions need to be made in January as an established side often drops like a stone into relegation yet given Mr Parish's customary arrogance, satisfaction with mediocrity and disinterest in regularly strengthening the team, I would not stake not stake too much on it.

I largely agree with you Neillo, particularly about the point of short term thinking.

It's a point I've made on numerous other threads but I don't actually blame Roy for much of what is going on, I regard him as a symptom, rather than the cause.

Reappointing him was effectively deferring squad investment and a long term strategy until next summer, under the assumption that he'd keep us up. Looking at the table following that Luton win, it's a decision which could come back to haunt us.

He has some mitigation for our poor form and the injuries have been bad but I would say that his apparent acceptance of our lack of investment this summer means he does share culpability. A new manager would have demanded a deeper squad.

You have completely correctly identified Brighton's superior planning and implementation as the reason that they have overtaken us and that is what the club is lacking at the moment.

In an ideal world I'd like to see us appoint a new manager for the second half of the season whose own ideology matches our own of promoting academy youngsters as well as buying young players and developing them.

Give them six months to implement a philosophy and identify areas of the squad that need strengthening (even though we all already know them). We should be planning which of our key players we are going to sell this summer to fund a squad overhaul and who we are going to buy with the money. Then have a proper go next season.

What I suspect will actually happen is that Roy will just do enough to get us through until the end of the season, at which point we'll sort of see which managers and players are available and hope it pans out.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

On the contrary, it is my impression that Roy sets up with the same defensive plan for every game, and given our league position of 15th, it would appear that his natural negative caution is in part caused by a majority of teams being above us.