The Kraken

We haven't assumed anything. We just haven't pre-judged the club over something we don't know about, which is what you did.

Or maybe we did. Neither of us have any idea, yet you have decide that it was definitely the club to blame.

Why bring facts into the equation when you can snipe away with baseless accusations?

Here's my Palace supporting mate's withering assessment of Alan Lee, when I suggested he'll probably score against Saints.... "You're bad if he does. I'm absolutely delighted he's gone. £300K in the coffers (should pay for David's wages!). The crazy fools offered him a 3 year contract on more than he was getting at Palace. He's 32 and sh1te for God's sake!"

I know what type of player he is, I've seen him many times. Which is why I say there would be no point in us going for him, he wouldn't start for us and would just be a backup for Lambert, and being as he's been playing in the Championship I would assume he's looking only for first team football at this level so with that in mind any approach from us would be a non-starter anyway.

He'll score some goals at this level but will probably be on a fair whack. And I'd speculate that, having come down from the Championship, he will expect to start every game which isn't going to happen with us. My Palace supporting mates are absolutely delighted to be rid of him as they think he's thoroughly useless. I know it's one division up, but he's consistently scored less than 10 goals a season at that level so I don't think we're missing out.

I got the impression that the fact he wasn't as good as some of our other players was an issue.

If you've read any of his posts before you'll realise he's a complete crackpot. As I said, apart from the usual extremists of doom and gloom, depsite the criticism there is still a huge amount of optimism for the season ahead. Expectation levels are so high (higher than ever before, certainly in my lifetime and I'm no whipper snapper) that our poor start will be over-analysed and, quite rightly, criticised. It doesn't mean most posters have become harbingers of doom as your post suggested; simply that we all want to see the team start to fulfill their potential and turn the dominace we're clearly seeing in games into meaningful points.

Over-reacting much Phil? Despite the extreme ramblings of a handful of the usual suspects, the main criticism has simply been that the team are underperforming according to their potential. God forbid that any team should be held to account over their own high standards. I've not yet seen 1 person suggest that AP should be sacked, so I'm not sure where you're getting that from. If anyone has said it, they're wrong, it's too premature for that (though whether Cortese will see it that way is a different matter altogether). As last season proved, if we continue to stumble along for 7 or 8 games until we notch a league win, we will be playing catch up for the rest of the season. Impossible from then? Clearly not, there's still 44 games left from now, so plenty of time to turn it round. But this season is our top chance to avoid stagnation and get back up the leagues, and we need to start realising our potential, fast.

It doesn't make any difference how the team will look in a few weeks time; the team now is good enough to be putting together better results than we've seen in the 2 league games so far. And it's good enough to take all 3 points at the weekend, Guly or not. They've just got to start getting the results together. And I'd love to be way out front at Christmas; it's where I expected us to be based on the current capabilities of the squad plus the additions we will add to it.

I've not seen the games (been away and on holidays until this week), which is why I've refrained from commenting specifically on individual things. From what I've heard, the signs are positive in terms of balance of play etc., but as the The9 has said, I'm just a little less patient for the good times to roll than last season. The form we had with pretty much the same starting 11 as last season has simply not been good enough so far; in two home games where we should have scored a minimum of 4 points and arguably 6, we've gained 1. Whatever the reasons are, whether its bad luck, the manager's fault, players off the pace, injuries, whatever, I don't know. And I won't comment, guess or make aspersions on that until I've been down to St. Mary's and watched. All I know is that our start is well below what we were hoping for and expecting. I thnk from what you say that we're on the same page; I'm frustrated, critical of our start but I'm not going to slate the manager or team, and I still have faith we can hit our true form very soon; our squad (and manager) are too good not to. But it really needs to happen immediately, there really are no excuses this term. We all know Cortese has a ruthless side and, right or wrong, I think if we haven't seen a serious upturn in form in the next 3 games then we'll see a change at the helm, and then God knows what will happen.

That's the problem; we ARE good enough to beat anyone in the division, but haven't done it yet. AP was cut a lot of slack on not signing all the players we needed before August 7 because the team should have been strong enough to come roaring out of the blocks; the extra players will be to improve a squad which already should be good enough to roll over the likes of Plymouth and Leyton Orient. That hasn't happened, so it's justifiable to criticise. We can't blame the lack of signings as the main excuse why we've started slowly, we already had a very good squad. It's early days, but we all put a lot of importance into a flying start; that hasn't happened yet and with a tricky looking away trip looming we absolutely need a positive, goal-scoring, winning performance otherwise AP is going to find himself in a very sticky position.

He also tells Pardew he has no tactics and instead should revert to a style of football made famous in the 1950s and 60s, which probably tells you where his level of tactical thinking is at.

I think this is far too easy a statement/excuse to make. Has anyone actually compiled any stats to show how many league games last year we had where one or both of these players came on when we were at a stalemate and actually changed the game/result? I think it would make interesting reading, either way. I can certainly remember when Antonio tore Bristol Rovers a new one, but he started that game. And Papa did a lot in the JPT. But I just wonder if its a distortion of reality that we remember them actually coming on in ltight league games when we were looking lost and providing the answer to all of our problems.

I'm thoroughly tired of this cliche already; it's no longer relevant in any way. No excuses this season, we're underperforming (last night aside, which is eminently forgivable considering the opposition) and need to improve, quickly.

In your longing for the past you clearly haven't noticed that the modern game is evolving away from wingers who get to the byeline, in favour of players who can cut in and influence play infield with marauding full backs providing more width. Look at Man City from just this Monday night; left footed Adam Johnson playing on the right and right footed James Milner playing on the left. Roy Hodgson is one of the game's most progressive coaches, and last year had left footed Damian Duff playing on the right and right footed Simon Davies on the left. There's countless other examples; Rosicky at Arsenal; Joe Cole previously at Chelsea; Ashley Young at Villa to name just 3. There are still some teams of course that have traditional type wingers (Spurs with Lennon for instance) but it's becoming much more commonplace than you would obviously care to admit that having the out and out traditional winger who gets to the byeline and stands one up for the tall centre forward is becoming a thing of the past.

No.

Apart from the fact that we didn't score, which is a worrying trend, last night's result does not bother me at all. A good, battling and positive display against a Premier League team and a swift exit from a cup which we're never going to win or get too much benefit from. And if we came away from the night with no injuries then all the better. Time for the squad to turn these good displays into a positive win on Saturday.

Anyone else just get a really big delay for the goal? Been running really smoothly so far but had to wait 2 or 3 minutes after the goal went in before it updated itself with a number of posts.

With Russian oil money available to grease the wheels of the FIFA kickback operation, I tend to agree. Allegedly.

Think I saw on the news, they went to Wembley, then Downing Street for a meeting with Nick Clegg followed by a stay at The Dorchester. Then a helicopter trip up to see Newcastle & Sunderland (I'm assuming via more bid city locations), culminating in Manchester.

On that point we'll have to agree to disagree; I think the resources we have at our disposal in Les Reed and his team are more than adequate to make that judgement. Anyway, time will tell in terms of how quickly he settles (it does need to be quickly) and how much impact he has. I still just get the impression that you're demanding the impossible, in terms of a British type Championship CM player, and only that; Danns and Stock wouldn't come, potentially others have also declined which is why we've gone this route. As I said, if we can't get a Championship CM we have to get a top league 1 player, which just gives us another Hammond. So we may as well go this route, as although its a risk it gives us a better chance of actually getting a better player.

It wasn't included in the formal bid.

Not without knowing how much the club previously charged for ad space, and how much it charges now. Which, being as no-one knows, kind of makes it a redundant discussion in terms of revenues.

People do try though; it's just perceived that you sometimes ignore or patronise such attempts at genuine discussion to fend off or indeed further aggravate the vitriol. I've made a constructive argument why this is a good, low risk signing on the previous page (posts 479 and 494, I think), whereby I've accepted this is a higher-risk strategy than it could be but outlined reasons why we may have done the deal. Happy to hear your comments on those.