Monthly Archives: October 2007

Watford Visits Make for Unhappy Viewing

Live on Sky, , , ,

It was another night where it looked like we would have a difficult job to get a positive result, and so it proved as league leaders Watford ran out 2-0 winners. It was depressingly familiar to the play-off defeat of eighteen months ago (Marlon King scores, check, we don’t, check, all to easy for Watford, check). Not an enjoyable night’s viewing.

The match will remain notable though for the debut of youngster John Bostock, who is still just 15 years old, making him the youngest player to ever appear in a Palace shirt. He was brought on with eighteen minutes still to go with Watford already two ahead, so it seems a bit gimmicky to me (especially with the Sky cameras on hand). Hopefully though it is the start of a long and successful career at Selhurst Park for Bostock.

(At least we’re not talking about how we’re still in the bottom three. D’oh!)

Crystal Palace 0-2 Watford [BBC Sport]

Stoke Crash Warnock’s Welcome Party

Neil Warnock, ,

Hmm, probably not the way that Neil Warnock envisaged his first home game as Palace manager. Despite Dougie Freedman’s equaliser Palace ended up being on the wrong end of a 3-1 scoreline.

Among the visitors and main talking points tonight were the Miami Dolphins’ cheerleaders, or for anyone who is a fan of Fighting Talk might know them as: “Let’s hear it for Gary O’Reilly!”

On a more serious front it sounds as if Warnock is still evaluating what he has to work with. “I can’t fault the players for effort – perhaps one or two are trying too hard,” he said, before continuing, “At 1-1, I thought we would go on and win it, but instead they picked us off.”

As an additional thought, what has happened to teams like Stoke and Portsmouth, who used to be certainties for 4 or 6 points every season, to suddenly develop winning runs against us? Shouldn’t this be balancing up somewhere? Coventry City and Nottingham Forest, I hope you’re taking note of this.

The fixtures don’t get any easier either. The next visitors to Selhurst Park are league leaders Watford.

Crystal Palace 1-3 Stoke City [BBC Sport]

Warnock’s Debut Ends In a Draw

Neil Warnock, ,

Neil Warnock’s first game for Palace ended yesterday in a 1-1 draw with Blackpool at Bloomfield Road. Palace’s took the lead through Tom Soares, who later saw red for an alleged stamp.

After the game Warnock was quoted as saying, “”I want our players to enjoy coming to work. We’ll win some and lose some but I just want everyone to enjoy it.” If we start winning a few more then I suspect we will all start to enjoy it a lot more.

Blackpool 1-1 Crystal Palace [BBC Sport]

Warnock Takes Over

Neil Warnock, Simon Jordan,

We know that Simon Jordan doesn’t advertise the manager’s job in the small ads, but if he did I suspect it would say something like “Opinionated chairman seeks like-minded manager to get us out of this miserable division”.

If he wants opinionated, then new appointment Neil Warnock is his man. If he wants someone to get us promoted, then Warnock’s track record show he could very well be that man. However at the moment the threat facing us is of leaving this division by the wrong door.

Warnock appointed new Palace boss [BBC Sport]

Taylor Sacked as Palace Boss

Peter Taylor, Simon Jordan, ,

After a disappointing start to the season Simon Jordan finally put us, and Peter Taylor, out of our misery, relieving our legendary player from his role as manager.

The great shame is just how much goodwill there was towards Peter Taylor. Frankly there’s been precious little animosity towards him despite results on the pitch, just worries about what this does for his legacy at Selhurst Park. No-one wanted him to fail, just the opposite in fact. Not that any fan in their right mind wants a Palace manager to fail, but because of his achievements in a Palace shirt I think we all wanted Taylor to bring similar excitement to the club in his time as manager. It just didn’t work that out that way.

So once again we’re on the hunt for a new manager. Who will we get this time? With the international break coming up we’ve got two weeks to put a new manager in place, if we should wish to do it that quickly. As usual, life in SE25 isn’t dull, although that doesn’t always mean it is pleasant.

Crystal Palace boss Taylor sacked [BBC Sport]

So Close But So Depressing

James Scowcroft, ,

A supposedly abysmal day at Selhurst Park was brigtened up approximately ten minutes from time as James Scowcroft popped up with a seemingly-unlikely winner.

Typically for this team and this season it was too good to be true. Hull City came back with a 90th minute penalty from Dean Marney to earn a 1-1 draw.

After today’s game we’re 19th with ten points from ten games. Worryingly third-from-bottom Norwich City are just two points behind us. I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the way this season was meant to go.

Crystal Palace 1-1 Hull City [BBC Sport]

Our Threatening Frontline Draws Another Blank

Peter Taylor, , ,

For last night’s game at Plymouth Argyle. Peter Taylor opted to go with two loan signings up front. Those two players were Paul Dickov and Besian Idrikaz, who prior to last night’s game had scored a grand total of zero goals for Crystal Palace.

After last night’s game they’ve still scored no goals for Crystal Palace, and typically we couldn’t find an opponent to match our striking inepititude, as Peter Halmosi’s 50th minute strike gave Argyle a 1-0 win.

Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Crystal Palace [BBC Sport]