Crystal Palace 1 Chelsea 3

[blueandproud]

2 hours ago, Sciatika said:

I used to live near Selburst Park. The area was OK apart from the days the Palace fans turned up. 

Croydon is fine but SE25? Nah, not for me.

[blueandproud]

Should win this one, our record at Selhurst Park is pretty good.  What we must do is try to make the atmosphere there even more poisonous, their fans are fuming mad with their board for lack of progress, an early goal from us should do the trick, they will also be missing their most creative players and they struggle to score goals.

[Ham]

5 hours ago, Dwmh said:

Lets enjoy this game because the fixture list gets rapidly harder afterwards other than a can't win fixture against a strong promotion candidate, Leeds.

And lets enjoy the rare opportunities we have of having a full team and 7 or 8 adequate alternatives on the bench.  Very rare period for us.

Apparently rotating strikers is a thing.  As is having a front 3 on the pitch and another front 3 on the bench.

Rotating strikers I get but I don't see Nkunku as a striker.  

I'm excited to see both of them as a partnership.  

[martin1905]

Petr

Gusto Disasi Badiashille Chilwell

Enzo Caicedo 

Madueke Nkunku Jackson 

Palmer

[Max Fowler]

In fact this game is such a banker that I am going to preempt the optimism crew by saying this - beating Preston, Boro' and Sheffield did not represent a turnaround in our season - neither will beating Villa in the cup and Palace.

In fact the games that will decide Poch's future are the following 5 of the next 6 PL games (excluding Burnley at home), + Liverpool in the Cup:

Man City (A), Brentford (A), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (A), (Man United (H).

If, as I am 90% sure of, we fall back into crisis mode starting with Man City, Poch's fate will finally be sealed and we can move on to these owners.

[Bert19]

Same team as Wednesday night please.  Only with Nkunku the first sub and Sterling nowhere near being that.  

We have to follow Wednesday night up with a convincing win here.  Start with the same intensity and we could have it wrapped up early - that's what i'm hoping to see.  

 

Tbh, I'm sort of surprised Palace didn't fire Hodgson this week - they look like they're really struggling.  Hopefully we don't decide to resort to type

[Box of Tricks]

Never trusted these sort of games where every key player for the opposition is "out injured".

They always spawn a David Martin or a Phil Jones out of nowhere and it ruins our day. Even this season we've been Conor Bradley'd and Lewis Miley'd.

[jasonb]

It would not be beyond Hodgson to big up the injuries and then we find Monday two of their better players are actually playing, it's managerial psychology.

If we think Palace are going to park the bus let's have some players on that can get free kicks around the box and see if Enzo can produce that magic again.

It would also be nice to see Madueke on the right wing again to see how he fares in back to back games.

 

 

[My Blood Is Blue]

1 hour ago, Max Fowler said:

In fact this game is such a banker that I am going to preempt the optimism crew by saying this - beating Preston, Boro' and Sheffield did not represent a turnaround in our season - neither will beating Villa in the cup and Palace.

In fact the games that will decide Poch's future are the following 5 of the next 6 PL games (excluding Burnley at home), + Liverpool in the Cup:

Man City (A), Brentford (A), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (A), (Man United (H).

If, as I am 90% sure of, we fall back into crisis mode starting with Man City, Poch's fate will finally be sealed and we can move on to these owners.

I'm bored of being told we can't celebrate the wins we get because they're against teams we should beat anyway. I'm a football fan, if my team wins a match, regardless of who it's against I'm happy and I'll celebrate it. Also, celebrating those wins doesn't mean those of us who are celebrating think that the crisis is over and everything is all good again, but I'm going to take the good days when I can at the moment! 

This isn't just aimed at you Max, but a few on here seem to be straight on here calling out people for being pleased when Chelsea gets a win, which I just find very odd, surely that's what we all want?!

Of course, we're on a high after a win and then a low after a defeat, that's pretty much the rollercoaster life of a football fan!

I don't think the result matters too much against City or Arsenal in the fixtures you've mentioned, I think it will be the performance. The anger after the Liverpool game wasn't because we didn't win, it was more to do with the manner in which we lost, likewise, the Man Utd match earlier in the season. I don't expect us to beat Man City, I don't really give us hope at all and I'd say the same about most teams playing them, but I want to see us put up a fight and make it difficult for them. Is that me giving up on our club and accepting we're crap now? No, that's just me being realistic about where we are in the rebuild, we're an entirely different club than the one we were under Roman and whilst that is gutting, it is just how it is.

[Miguelito07]

17 hours ago, Sciatika said:

I lived there (Thornton Heath) in the 1980s. It's a while ago.

I dont think Thornton Heath has changed since  😞

[Max Fowler]

38 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

I'm bored of being told we can't celebrate the wins we get because they're against teams we should beat anyway. I'm a football fan, if my team wins a match, regardless of who it's against I'm happy and I'll celebrate it. Also, celebrating those wins doesn't mean those of us who are celebrating think that the crisis is over and everything is all good again, but I'm going to take the good days when I can at the moment! 

This isn't just aimed at you Max, but a few on here seem to be straight on here calling out people for being pleased when Chelsea gets a win, which I just find very odd, surely that's what we all want?!

Of course, we're on a high after a win and then a low after a defeat, that's pretty much the rollercoaster life of a football fan!

I don't think the result matters too much against City or Arsenal in the fixtures you've mentioned, I think it will be the performance. The anger after the Liverpool game wasn't because we didn't win, it was more to do with the manner in which we lost, likewise, the Man Utd match earlier in the season. I don't expect us to beat Man City, I don't really give us hope at all and I'd say the same about most teams playing them, but I want to see us put up a fight and make it difficult for them. Is that me giving up on our club and accepting we're crap now? No, that's just me being realistic about where we are in the rebuild, we're an entirely different club than the one we were under Roman and whilst that is gutting, it is just how it is.

My post wasn't aimed at you @My Blood Is Blue - I think you are quite realistic about where we are at. There are a few people on here however, who cede absolutely no ground in terms of admitting how badly this project is failing, so I am also bored of people acting as if everything is okay because we had one good performance against Villa.

Actually I find all of this good fun, and I am just being a bit provocative - people can think what they like and I respect everyone's right to have a view on here and I really wish all the best to the posters who I disagree with most. We are all part of the CFCnet family - and thanks for keeping us together! 💙

I am not saying we shouldn't celebrate wins by any means - I am just putting it into perspective.

But I absolutely refute your claim that "it is just how it is". We can and do change the course of this football club - we did when we got Potter sacked and we can moving forward. Look, if we have a remarkable turnaround - win the cup and even push for a European place, will I be proved wrong? Sure, but it's not going to happen.

I don't want to be doom and gloom but I am also trying to be consistent - these are not the normal "ups and downs" of being a football fan, this is undoubtedly the most failed project in European football and we should expect better. We have lost so many games and had so many bad performances that one good one makes little difference.

So personally - I would rather take the red pill and fight this board as much as possible to get us back to winning ways, because our current plan is never going to get there. If, as I expect, we are about to head further down the table, we will need all the fans not to be apathetic and say "it is what it is", but say - this is unacceptable! Comparing to the previous regime is pointless - it's all about, are we being successful now or not? And the reality is clearly an enourmous no - this regime could hardly have failed worse.

Most Chelsea fans understand this very well.

Edited February 9 by Max Fowler

[ROTG]

2 hours ago, Bert19 said:

Same team as Wednesday night please.  Only with Nkunku the first sub and Sterling nowhere near being that.  

We have to follow Wednesday night up with a convincing win here.  Start with the same intensity and we could have it wrapped up early - that's what i'm hoping to see.  

 

Tbh, I'm sort of surprised Palace didn't fire Hodgson this week - they look like they're really struggling.  Hopefully we don't decide to resort to type

Going to be interesting to see how Wednesdays team performs against Roy's low block team

[My Blood Is Blue]

22 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

My post wasn't aimed at you @My Blood Is Blue - I think you are quite realistic about where we are at. There are a few people on here however, who cede absolutely no ground in terms of admitting how badly this project is failing, so I am also bored of people acting as if everything is okay because we had one good performance against Villa.

Actually I find all of this good fun, and I am just being a bit provocative - people can think what they like and I respect everyone's right to have a view on here and I really wish all the best to the posters who I disagree with most. We are all part of the CFCnet family - and thanks for keeping us together! 💙

I am not saying we shouldn't celebrate wins by any means - I am just putting it into perspective.

But I absolutely refute your claim that "it is just how it is". We can and do change the course of this football club - we did when we got Potter sacked and we can moving forward. Look, if we have a remarkable turnaround - win the cup and even push for a European place, will I be proved wrong? Sure, but it's not going to happen.

I don't want to be doom and gloom but I am also trying to be consistent - these are not the normal "ups and downs" of being a football fan, this is undoubtedly the most failed project in European football and we should expect better. We have lost so many games and had so many bad performances that one good one makes little difference.

So personally - I would rather take the red pill and fight this board as much as possible to get us back to winning ways, because our current plan is never going to get there. If, as I expect, we are about to head further down the table, we will need all the fans not to be apathetic and say "it is what it is", but say - this is unacceptable! Comparing to the previous regime is pointless - it's all about, are we being successful now or not? And the reality is clearly an enourmous no - this regime could hardly have failed worse.

Most Chelsea fans understand this very well.

Likewise, as I said, wasn't just aimed at you, yours just happened to be the one I replied to.

I take your point that this isn't the usual ups and downs of a football club, I more meant on the results than the position of the club as a whole, on that we're fully in agreement, it is an absolute mess and needs sorting ASAP, but I don't think sorting the club at board level will instantly put us back fighting for titles, the reality of it is that under this ownership, we're now far away from that and need to be patient as we go through this rebuild... but that doesn't mean things at the top of the club don't need fixing. I would be kicking Winstanley and Stewart out ASAP, if it were up to me and I'd be bringing in at last a couple of former players to have some kind of connection to the heart of this club. The next manager we hire, should also strongly consider bringing JT in as number 2

[ROTG]

2 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

In fact the games that will decide Poch's future are the following 5 of the next 6 PL games (excluding Burnley at home), + Liverpool in the Cup:

Man City (A), Brentford (A), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (A), (Man United (H).

this looks a very Deja vu "we are all doomed "comment you wrote around mid October when the team were going to play Arsenal , Tottenham, Man City Newcastle and those matches turned out to be some of the best performances from the team with Newcastle being the exception

Time for you to have an Eric Idle moment and always look on the bright side of life 

Edited February 9 by ROTG

[Max Fowler]

1 minute ago, ROTG said:

this looks a very Deja vu "we are all doomed "comment you wrote around mid October when the team were going to play Arsenal , Tottenham, Man City Newcastle and those matches turned out to be some of the best performances from the team with Newcastle being the exception

Time for you to have an Eric Idle moment and always look on the bright side of life 

That's not true - we absolutely did blow it over that period.

Drew to Arsenal, lost to Brentford, drew with City, lost to Newcastle, lost to Man United, lost to Everton. 8 points from 8 games - relegation form.

Yes there were some half decent performances in there but that's the problem with hitting a run of tough games.

We blew it by also dropping points in many easy games at the start of the season and continued that with losing to Wolves.

If you lose your easy games you simply are highly unlikely to make it up in the harder ones, despite us supposedly playing better against big teams.

[boratsbrother]

3 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

In fact this game is such a banker that I am going to preempt the optimism crew by saying this - beating Preston, Boro' and Sheffield did not represent a turnaround in our season - neither will beating Villa in the cup and Palace.

In fact the games that will decide Poch's future are the following 5 of the next 6 PL games (excluding Burnley at home), + Liverpool in the Cup:

Man City (A), Brentford (A), Newcastle (H), Arsenal (A), (Man United (H).

If, as I am 90% sure of, we fall back into crisis mode starting with Man City, Poch's fate will finally be sealed and we can move on to these owners.

 

3 hours ago, Max Fowler said:

 

Alarmist nonsense to say we will be back in crisis mode if we get poor results from those fixtures!

A truly great City team at home to a midtable team is a banker result. Arsenal are a  far better team than us  so will also be hot favourites to beat us.  I fully expect us to lose both ganes.

We've been appallingly bad against Utd for several years now. No matter how bad they have been we have largely been even worse on the day. Due a better performance though so might get points here. 

Newcastle will park the bus and hope to get a goal on the break. We know how difficult it is for us to break down trans who do that, so it'll  be a difficult game to win but a point should be gained.  

Brentford away can be tricky but it's the game of those 5 we will start favourites to win.

I'll be happy enough with 5 or 6 points from those 5 games. 

 

Edited February 9 by boratsbrother

[paulw66]

16 hours ago, martin1905 said:

Petr

Gusto Disasi Badiashille Chilwell

Enzo Caicedo 

Madueke Nkunku Jackson 

Palmer

Not sure Big Ben is available, but Colwill is. Straight swap, for me. 

[Dwmh]

14 minutes ago, boratsbrother said:

Alarmist nonsense to say we will be back in crisis mode if we get poor results from those fixtures!

33 minutes ago, My Blood Is Blue said:

Likewise, as I said, wasn't just aimed at you, yours just happened to be the one I replied to.

I take your point that this isn't the usual ups and downs of a football club, I more meant on the results than the position of the club as a whole, on that we're fully in agreement, it is an absolute mess and needs sorting ASAP, but I don't think sorting the club at board level will instantly put us back fighting for titles, the reality of it is that under this ownership, we're now far away from that and need to be patient as we go through this rebuild... but that doesn't mean things at the top of the club don't need fixing. I would be kicking Winstanley and Stewart out ASAP, if it were up to me and I'd be bringing in at last a couple of former players to have some kind of connection to the heart of this club. The next manager we hire, should also strongly consider bringing JT in as number 2

It is curious just how quickly we have adjusted to being a mid-table team which gets excited when we beat a team a little above us and demoralised when we lose to a team 3 points below us.
 

I do respect MBIB's point (perhaps made in another post) that he just wants to celebrate the good times and rant in the bad times and just do that game by game as if he were a normal fan of a normal club.  Can't get carried away by that myself, but it is clearly what normal fans do.

I guess there is short term success in this weeks games.
Medium term success to be expected over the next 6 weeks.
And long term success over several seasons.
I'm most concerned about long term success, and it looks very worrying to me.  24/25 and esp 25/26 will get much worse IMO (even if we remain a 50-55 pont team)

 

 

[Original 21]

So it’s confirmed that Badiashile is out. So I guess it’ll be Colwill, if fit, or Silva. 

[Max Fowler]

1 hour ago, boratsbrother said:

 

Alarmist nonsense to say we will be back in crisis mode if we get poor results from those fixtures!

A truly great City team at home to a midtable team is a banker result. Arsenal are a  far better team than us  so will also be hot favourites to beat us.  I fully expect us to lose both ganes.

We've been appallingly bad against Utd for several years now. No matter how bad they have been we have largely been even worse on the day. Due a better performance though so might get points here. 

Newcastle will park the bus and hope to get a goal on the break. We know how difficult it is for us to break down trans who do that, so it'll  be a difficult game to win but a point should be gained.  

Brentford away can be tricky but it's the game of those 5 we will start favourites to win.

I'll be happy enough with 5 or 6 points from those 5 games. 

 

Question @boratsbrother - do you think we were in crisis mode after Wolves?
The point isn't the difficulty of those games - the point is we are already 11th!!! If we started the season with these 5 games I would fully agree with you. 

The fact is we are already 11th and will likely end up 12th - 14th after those games - nearly 3 quarters of the way through the season.

That isn't crisis mode? Absolutely crazy how our standards have slipped in such a short space of time.

Whether you think that is crisis mode or not, the fans will - and I fully expect the revolt we saw in the Wolves game to get far, far worse.

[My Blood Is Blue]

16 minutes ago, Original 21 said:

So it’s confirmed that Badiashile is out. So I guess it’ll be Colwill, if fit, or Silva. 

Or Gilchrist... I think he'd be fine against Palace and if he is a genuine option for us, if not right now but in the not to distant future, it's the kind of game you'd be happy for him to play, in his natural position. I just think we looked so much more balanced without Silva, and I say that as a huge Thiago Silva fan.

[Mark Kelly]

Personally I think Silva is done so Gilchrist is in for me. 

That's done as in too slow to help us, he's still a great player but not when the entire side functions better with a higher line. 

Edited February 9 by Mark Kelly

[Max Fowler]

Silva is 100% playing.

[asvaberg]

51 minutes ago, Max Fowler said:

Silva is 100% playing.

I can live with that 😁

[Holymoly]

We have no business not winning this match even if it is at Sainsbury's Car Park. It's quite frustrating that we have to wait until Monday to find out which team rocks up though.