The Kraken

Indeed.

This is exactly how I see it. The club statement alluded to that fact that the first team and development centre need to be more integrated so I can only see a young manager coming in who'll buy into that. I can see the manager only having a small role in future transfers etc so I can't see a more established manager wanting a part of that. I don't think Zola would be good for us, but I really think that's who we'll get.

I think 3 points today are absolutely vital for AP to stay in position; I could very easily see a defeat meaning the end of his tenure. So for that alone I'm doubly hoping we can put in a performance today and put some points on the table.

I think you're right about the first two, not sure about number three though. Edit to say: I agree If that happens.

My opinion is that you're bleating about someone pointing out that we're in the same league as Rochdale. They weren't for one minute saying that our club was the same as their's, simply that we're in the same league as them. You, however, seemed to twist that to say that we aspire to be in the same class as Rochdale, which clearly wasn't what was being inferred. And I credit you with enough wisdom to have known that in the first place, hence the childish moniker I ascribed you.

Stop being such a drama queen. He's pointing out that, as a club, it's no good resting on past glories or where you think your club should be. Right now we're in the third tier of English football, and so are Rochdale. It's up to the club to sort out that imbalance, but until that happens we can only "carry on and be like Rochdale" as, for now, they are our competitors. No amount of complaining how unfair it all is, and how we're above all that, is going to change it.

Rudi Skacel has signed for Saints.

Good news. But I wonder whether he'll actually start; I guess it depends on his fitness and what AP has seen from him in training. If he is fit, might make sense to start with him in a 451, with Barney available to come on for 2 up top if required.

And there you have a massively simplified analysis of the problem. Firstly, because no-one actually has any idea whatsoever of how high in the negotiations Cortese was prepared to, or did, go. Secondly, because it assumes that it's Antonio or nothing; tick tock, but there's still time to spend said amount on another player who could well have as much as or more impact as Antonio. And thirdly, because it identifies one position (and an impact player position at that) as the dividing factor between our poor form now and the guarantee of promotion.

Very good point FC. I think there's a few reasons why we tend to knock it long so often, particularly from Davis. First of all, while we'd like to see the ball played on the deck all the time, as you point out we are at a completely different level to Germany and will always be much more reliant on the safety-first, don't make a mistake approach. That however often leads to an over-reliance on the long ball, which is where the trade-off needs to be found. But secondly, when you have someone like Lambert who will win much more than his fair share of high balls (which are often in a dangerous attacking area) you kind of begin to repeat where you've previously found success. Not since Beattie have I seen us have such a reliable outlet for winning or bringing down the long ball, so it's inevitable we will try to reproduce what has consistently worked before.

Great point. Suggestions of paying £1M for someone who can't get into a mid-level Championship side are misguided IMO. Puncheon cost siginficantly less than that and was in the League 1 team of the season. OK, with Antonio you may get more of a player for the future, but we need a player for the now. Now isn't the time to be investing for the future, it's for finding a player who can come in and do a job at this level right now. Antonio still has plenty fo developing to achieve before I'd consider him a genuine starter for us in this league anyway, he had too many average/poor performances intermingled with good ones last season for my eyes.

If I had to guess, I'd agree. It would be akin to us loaning out young Chamberlayne and agreeing with the loan club that they could buy him after a year. Or like Man U letting Beckham go on loan to Preston with an option to buy. Or Rio Ferdinand to Bournemouth. Or Jermaine Defoe to Bournemouth. Or......

2 wrongs make a right then? Says alot about you. Carry on, you're clearly not worth engaging with.

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.