Palace's last 5 games : - Crystal Palace 1-0 Chelsea Newcastle 1-0 Crystal Palace Sunderland 0-0 Crystal Palace Crystal Palace 0-1 Southampton Swansea 1-1 Crystal Palace Never scored nor conceded more than a single goal in any of them. Pulis running a very tight ship and it's bought them 5 points. Why should it change on Saturday? Big call for Ole. Make it a tight game looking for a 1-0 with the risk of a no score draw, or go for the throat and risk everything? If he gets it right, he'll be rightly lauded - if he gets it wrong, it's goodnight Vienna for me, especially if those around us get positive results. We're adrift and we need to close it up. Don't want to hear "there're still 5 games to go" mantra on the back of a disappointing result.
This weekend will be make or break for welsh teams imo. If swansea win then we will be safe, If cardiff win they live to fight on and god forbid if cardiff lose then that will most certainly send cardiff down. We both need positive results against two teams that can beat us both and need the points just as much as we do. but either way what ever happens it should give everyone a much better idea on where we will finish at the end of the season..
Palace is a tough game and given room they will score more than one against us. This is not an easy game and Ole will need to earn his coin.
Ole needs to pick the right team from the start this time. If he doesn't then its game over I'm afraid.
Agreed Nat - Seems like a clash of two opposites - who will prevail? Wily old fox Pulis with huge tactical experience of what it takes to grind out results, against a young whippersnapper with flair for the job but absolutely no management history at this level. To his credit, Ole has shown a willingness to change things around during a game, but is he just putting his mistakes right? He must know his players by now, but his starting lineups frequently border on the bizarre for some of us. If Pulis sets up Palace from what we all know from his history, Ole will have to get this one spot on to get the win we need - anything else and they'll grind us out of it. With Pulis's reputation, it would be sensible to go for one of the scorelines from those last five games of theirs, but I can't help feeling we got something extra in the tank at the moment to win this well.
If tactics are off tomorrow its game over, pure and simple.. Palace are certainly no pushovers and will be looking at tomorrow also as a must win game. For me, this is a cup final. Ole needs to get this right from the gunshot!