Here’s to you Vincent Kompany……..I think, although originality merits for adapting it to fawn over our dreadful regime, as opposed to a player.
Chants are rubbish, but the vast majority of fans don't join in with anything except 'Come on Watford' during an evening fixture with 3 minutes to go. My issue with the 1881 is that they aren't that dedicated. Half of them join in with a few songs and then fade and criticise the team when we make mistakes. If you're going to have a singing section, the minimum is to sing loud and proud all match. From beyond the half way line of SEJ, you can hardly hear them.
For anyone thinking Palace put us down on Saturday. They didn't. We did that ourselves when we sold them Hughes.
You think Will Hughes would’ve contributed the additional 17 or so points we’d have needed to stay up?
Yes but he’s only one player, he could’ve only replaced one of those players at any one time. We would’ve been better off with Hughes but would’ve still got relegated. If selling him was the sole reason for relegation then fantastic, as that means the problems at the club aren’t that serious at all and are easily solve-able with just a single player.
You're right of course. But our midfield has been woeful all season. More of a problem than the defence. A bit of stability and control in there and perhaps it would have been an actual relegation battle instead of what we got. Selling him for a small sum looking like a terrible move given what we brought in. Also worth saying the previous season plenty on here around Christmas time said we keep pinning our hopes on one player getting fit and turning our season around but it wouldn't happen. Hughes basically did that for Munoz.
No mate. It was good business. Everyone on here said so at the time. He and Chalobah must have been greedy or slagged off the fans or something worse, otherwise Gino wouldn't have got rid. After all, he's a proper football man, business football pozzo model.
In Leventhal's article there is something about a player who asked for something. It was agreed on then reneged upon. I expect it was Hughes. Gino is a clown. He has no business running a football club at this level. As for Hodgson he deserves a huge amount of abuse against Everton. Nice fat pay cheque for achieving the square root of nothing.
It was the player being told through the summer they would have a new contract sorted out for them, then with just a few weeks to go that suddenly being revoked; the Stability having randomly changed their minds at the last minute.
I agree the decision to let Hughes go was crazy. I also agree that the midfield has floundered nearly all season with zero shape or balance. But I totally disagree it’s been a bigger issue than the defence.
Two ways of figuring it out: If it’s someone who was told in the second half of last season that a new deal would be done in the summer etc, they may feel that was ‘last minute’ in terms of ‘changing mind’ = Hughes. If it’s someone who genuinely felt most of the summer they were getting a new deal and then it didn’t come = Chalobah. Could really be either of them!
An article on Saturday’s game and Roy Hodgson from a Palace viewpoint from today’s Independent: Saturday will go down as not just the day Watford were relegated from the Premier League for the fourth time, but also the day Roy Hodgson trolled their fans so hard I think he’s now banned from Hertfordshire. Despite being one of the nicest men in football, Hodgson is a strangely divisive figure; Liverpool and England fans hate him, Fulham and West Brom fans love him, and everyone else knows him from memes. But the club where it really felt like a perfect fit was Crystal Palace. Local boy turned youth team player turned (eventual) manager. And it was to begin with; Hodgson helping drag his boyhood club away from the Premier League relegation zone in his first season after the team had started the 2018-19 campaign with seven defeats and no goals remains a top flight record. However, by the end, almost a year ago, his tenure had soured. The football was at times unwatchable, the squad was seriously underfunded and many fans’ love towards him had dwindled. His final game against Arsenal, in front of a Covid-restricted attendance of 5,000 fans at Selhurst Park, was fun but wasn’t quite the send-off he deserved for comfortably keeping Palace up for four seasons. That chance to say farewell to a full house in south London arrived this weekend, the perfect opportunity for a proper goodbye. There was just one small hitch; he was returning as the manager of pseudo-rivals Watford, who needed a result to avoid relegation back to the Championship. Palace meanwhile are flying, playing brilliant football under Patrick Vieira in his first season in the job since taking over from Hodgson. Palace and Watford have a complicated history that involves a play-off final in 2013, an FA Cup semi-final in 2016, and Wilfried Zaha and a man in a hornet costume. “I hope Roy gets a massive reception,” says my mate Will Thomas as we grab a pint in the Polish bar by Norwood Junction I’ve started drinking in before the game. “I’m disappointed he took the Watford job, I’m not going to lie, he never had a chance there, and I don’t like the way they have seemed to try and create this rivalry, especially with Wilf [Zaha] and Harry the Hornet.” Bloody Harry The Hornet. Even Hodgson had issues with the Watford mascot at one point during his stint as Palace manager. “Anyone that gets upset by a man in a hornet costume probably needs to take stock at some stage,” says Mike Parkin, a Watford-supporting friend of mine who is also at the bar with his kids and Hornets-supporting mates. “It’s a friendly rivalry, really,” he adds, which is pretty much proven by the fact we are all standing there drinking and joking in the sun before kick-off. But how will “Agent Roy” – as he’s been dubbed by some Palace fans online for going to our so-called rivals and almost instantly relegating them – be received by the Selhurst faithful? I wonder this as I walk to the ground with my dad for my 20th game of the season, having witnessed all but one of the team’s league wins and just four defeats. I think that possibly puts me in line for manager of the year. A warm but polite reception it turned out, as Hodgson emerges from the tunnel behind his players before kick-off and shares a few cursory hugs with Palace subs including Jeffrey Schlupp. But his afternoon’s love affair with the home fans is only just getting started. Balloons stream down from the Holmesdale Road end and it weirdly feels like a promotion party. Referee Graham Scott makes everyone wait for kick-off until every balloon has been popped, while Ben Foster takes the chance to theatrically pop each one near him to cheers from the fans behind his goal. On the touchline Vieira is dressed in a smart-looking cardigan, chinos and trainers while Hodgson is a few feet away in a suit and tie, perhaps a sartorial nod to the younger, fresher approach Palace have moved to. Roy’s faithful assistant Ray Lewington, meanwhile, is wearing tracksuit bottoms and not his infamous shorts, which just doesn’t look right. No wonder Watford were going down. On the pitch the Eagles are now fresher, more stylish and aesthetically pleasing. Zaha, Michael Olise and Ebere Eze glide through the Watford defence with only Foster denying Olise a goal after a superb move. Palace play with a swagger and confidence rarely seen under Hodgson in his final couple of seasons at Selhurst. Hassane Kamara then hands Palace the chance to capitalise on their pressure, literally, by giving away a penalty and Zaha, so often the villain to Watford fans, converts for his 13th goal of the season, his best ever return taking him level with Harry Kane. Former Watford midfielder Will Hughes clatters into a tackle in front of the Main Stand and a chorus of “That’s why you’re going down” rings around the ground. Wilf and Watford is a funny one. Palace fans adore him, Hornets fans hate him and I’m not even sure why but he gets under their skin and they clearly get under his. “For someone that is so skilful and demonstrably brilliant he’s easy to get at, as Watford fans have proved over the years, and I think perhaps that mental aspect of the game has hindered him a little bit,” Mike says afterwards. Of course, then, it would be him that sends them down. At half-time I buy a bottle of Diet Coke which has become a weird little routine I do at games. It started with getting one during the West Ham game in January where Palace were 3-0 down at half-time, and they were so good in the second half I decided it was clearly magic and had to be used responsibly. In the six games since I’ve bought a bottle of Diet Coke they’ve won four and drawn two. Anyway, with Diet Coke in my hand the three points were now surely secure. Watford’s first shot on target comes during the half-time challenge from six-year-old Riley, who nails his penalty. He should get a start next week. Hodgson gets his second polite reception of the day from the home fans as he walks out for the second half, the highlight of which is a fan a few rows down from me getting hit on the head by the ball. Kamara compounds his miserable afternoon by getting a second yellow for a foul on Olise but as he trudges back down the touchline to the obligatory goodbye waves from the home fans he seems completely unfazed, like he was just out for a walk with friends. Perhaps a nod to some of the issues Watford have had this season. It strikes me during the second half that it is a case of past meeting future as a pragmatic if uninspiring Hodgson team battles to stay in the game – something Palace fans had witnessed many time before over the previous four years – against a youthful, exciting side with the likes of Olise, Eze, Marc Guehi and Odsonne Edouard delighting the crowd. I wonder if Hodgson is standing there on the touchline secretly quite proud of what his old team has become, because in truth none of what Vieira is doing now would be possible without Hodgson’s four years in charge and the platform he handed over to his replacement. Foster, easily man of the match, pulls off his 400th save of the game to keep the score respectable while the home fans sing “Oh Wilfried Zaha, he’s sending you down” to the Watford fans, who are about to get even more wound up. The final whistle comes and Palace relegate their fifth team in five years, following on from Hull, Stoke, Huddersfield and Cardiff). Hodgson immediately embraces Palace sub James Tomkins and Zaha and then walks straight down the touchline to the changing rooms, applauding the home fans and blowing them kisses as they serenade him with “He’s one of our own”. It’s a beautiful moment. Not for Watford fans, of course, who are on the other side of the pitch wondering why the manager who has literally just relegated them doesn’t bother coming over to say thank you and sorry. “Unfortunately they were a bit too far away” is Hodgson’s official reason given in the post-match press conference which feels like even more trolling. “I think he didn’t do a tremendous job of reading the room,” Mike Parkin tells me later. “It doesn’t take much to go over to the opposition fans and give them a cursory clap, although ultimately Watford have got far, far greater issues to worry about this summer than Hodgson’s reaction at the end of the game.” He certainly won’t be blowing kisses to the Vicarage Road faithful on Wednesday night against Everton. Hodgson speaks after the game about having missed the Palace fans over the past few years and how much the moment at the end of the game touched him. In truth, it touched all of us in red and blue. “It was great to have the opportunity to say goodbye and thank you to him,” says my dad as we walk back to Selhurst station. “He was able to see how appreciative the crowd were of him, it was absolutely the whole ground which was saying thank you Roy for what you did and he did do an awful lot for us.” In a way it was the perfect chance to close the Roy Hogdson at Palace chapter, which had weirdly rumbled on for a year since his departure with some fans taking Vieira’s success as a chance to have a swipe at Hodgson. His spell may not have ended the way many of us had hoped but all that is water under the bridge now and everyone in SE25 is looking forward not backwards after a very exciting first season under our new manager. We just need to make sure Selhurst is well stocked with Diet Coke next season.
No wonder the Indie is known to Private Eye as the 'Indescribablyboring.' On and on that went like a nun's knickers!
Sorry, but the Indie isn't a tabloid. I thought the Palace angle on Hodgson in particular gave a bit of balance to the media eulogies for him over the weekend.
We're all entitled to an opinion! My logic is if we'd had the ball occasionally we might have done better.
I know that. It sometimes appears that merely by hanging around for long enough people are afforded credit and affection. I prefer the Billy Wilder response...
I think it was in the mould of 'give him a little shove in the back as he jumps to make sure he's off balance and can't do much with it'. Anyone who's played at any standard knows they've done it regularly and it can be a dangerous ploy; it's really what VVD did to 5uck up GD's knee. I've got no problem with the on-field ref not seeing it in real time; I simply think the VAR had to see it for what it was. Yes, it's a contact sport, but I'm not sure that should extend to a blatant push in the back that results in the critical decision of the match, no matter how 'minor' that push may have been. Seems to me 'tackling' (permitted in the laws) is now deemed too dangerous to be countenanced whilst deliberate pushing (not permitted in the laws) is usually OK.
When I go I sit mid SEJ. You cant hear them really. It's not a good place for them you either want them half way line or next to the away fans IMO
Don't you worry sunshine. We are in safe hands with Gino and Scott. Never was there a pair of more complete.......
He was actually voted one of their best players on the CPFC forum (Eze narrowly coming top last time I looked) although one or two posters expressed doubt as some have when he’s played before, saying they don’t see him as a regular in their midfield and he only looked good because the opposition (us, obviously) was so poor. If only we had the luxury of doubting whether a player of Hughes’ quality was a regular first-teamer this season! (I suppose we had someone like that in Cleverley in the 2018/19 season, but even back then he wasn’t as good as Hughes is now.)
