Old Trafford is about to get Acme Chemicals level of toxic. Lovely.
Villa defense was playing with fire all day and finally got burned.
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They say that every manager is six bad results away from the sack. Well, our current form is abysmal - especially at home. T’is the type of form that gets you the boot.
Fun Fact: When Roy left at the end of his previous contract (the first manager in Palace’s history to complete a full term), the team was mostly injured. Stress injuries like muscle strains. But it was explained away as being due to a squad that was aged and threadbare. Then he came back and took over a young, fit and vibrant squad…who then all started to succumb to stress injuries like muscle strains.
I am a Hodgson fan. But this was always meant to be a stop-gap move after Vieira threatened to get a talented team relegated. With the January trading window about to open in…umm…January, now is the time to make a change if a change is to be made.
Palace take care of Brentford 3-1 and jump to 13th.
Football, eh?
Fulham! Thats how you end the year!
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The lunacy of English football’s holiday fixtures:
- Crystal Palace played 7 EPL fixtures in December
- In January, they will play 2, plus 1 FA Cup tie
- Their next EPL fixture is not until January 20.
Incredible stuff.
The ban on refueling helped speed things up dramatically, but damn those guys are quicker than Ralphie Parker’s Old Man.
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The storied FA Cup 3rd Round kicks off Thursday (1/4) when Crystal Palace host Everton in one of a handful of all-Premier League ties. In all, there are 32 matches in the 3rd round, pitting the survivors of the lower leagues and “non-league” teams against the top clubs, and will be played over the next few days, ending on Monday.
The matches are all being streamed on ESPN, with the marquee game being Arsenal vs. Liverpool on Sunday. Other ties to watch out for are Chelsea vs. Preston North End - once a powerhouse in the game that is now seeing a resurgence - and Sunderland vs. Newcastle, because they hate each other like the Yankees and Red Sox…but much, much worse.
To start the round off right, the FA has out out this cool piece on the clubs around Croydon, all of which are in the area where I used to get up to no good.
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Palace appear to have gone with a new kit today, which I’m calling “Banana Republic Dictator Chic”.
França is getting his first start, but that’s because Olise has an injury. 
Not a fan of the sash, I gather?
Love me a sash on our kits. Not a fan of this all-blue kit. Doesn’t look like us.
Definite shortage of red.
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Exactly this. If there’s a bias for one of red or blue, it’s typically blue. But this is like none more blue.
Comms really starting to piss me off. Everton passing the ball around in Palace’s half - “it’s so easy for them.” Palace passing the ball around in Everton’s half - “Everton have all their pieces in place.”
ETA: Comms shocked when the possession stat shows 44/56, because he thought it was much more in Everton’s favor than that. Proves he’s listening to himself and not watching the game.
Halftime stats were 47/53 possession, 4 attempts each, fouls 4/6.
Comms maintained that Everton had “by far the best of it”. Get fucked.
That’s a game that doesn’t need to be repeated, but yet it will be.
I don’t understand the FA Cup insistence on replaying draws, especially in the early rounds. What a scheduling nightmare. Just play some extra time and then penalties.
It used to be that ties were replayed ad infinitum until it was resolved - up to and including the final. Part of the Palace-Brighton animosity is an FA Cup tie that went to 2 replays, i.e. 3 matches in total, with the 3rd game being particularly acrimonious and also involving some hilarious (because Palace won) refereeing shenanigans. It was at this match that the Brighton manager had tea poured on him, prompting him to flip off the Palace fans and throw his coins on the ground.
Replays typically happened really quickly. Like you tied on Saturday and played again on Wednesday. Eventually the police prevailed over this, in that they could not organize the forces to umm…police games at such short notice (i.e. they got fed up with paying all the overtime).
So the League Cup is now one-and-done after extra time and penalties. The FA Cup has extra time and penalties after the replay, which is scheduled a little way out to allow for authorities to lay on the necessary personnel.
Sometimes, the prospect of a replay - as a neutral - is thrilling, because the game was so good. This is not one of those times.
One of those times, though, was the FA Cup final between Palace and Man Utd. The original game was a thrilling 3-3 draw after extra time.
The replay was a piece of shit. I was at both games.
Part of why they do it is the way attendance money is allocated. Iirc it’s 45% for each team and 10% for the FA. A small team being drawn at home vs a bigger team could then play to win but if they draw then they get a piece of a much larger pie in the away match. The FA Cup is the lifeblood of non-league teams in this way.
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