I’m not Rafa’s biggest fan but I really don’t think it’s fair to judge the man until he is allowed purchase the players he actually wants instead of shopping on a shoestring budget....id love to see the lists of wanted players he speaks of, I bet any money that the players he gets are the ones from the “plan c” list (Penfold and the fat man are entirely at fault here)......his subs and what he says to the team remain a mystery but we shouldn’t be under any illusion that there’s someone out there that could do a better job with that awful squad
To be honest the way we played the second half I would have snapped your hand off for a point we where that ****. Their keeper touched the ball 4 tikes second half.
Got to say we were lucky in the end. That performance from Clark is as bad as it gets. Yedlin was ****ing awful too. But Clark gives away blatant pen, then tries to again later? Generally out of position all day, never won a header all day. Did one thing right all day. Mbemba must watch and think “Really Rafa?” Gayle was **** too. How him and Joselu were considered better options by Rafa than Mitrovic I’ll never know. Why Hayden? He did the usual and just found somewhere to hide. I know merino looks a bit lacklustre but at least he’d take part in the game. Rafa changed his subs up today and took bull by horns. Much earlier. Shame he took our best player off To be fair though Kenedy was blowing a bit. Not sure how you are at 20yr old but hasn’t played much football. The fans used to criticise Pardew wondering what he said at half time. Like then though I’ll defend the manager. It’s a lack of experience and game management from the players in my opinion. The manager isn’t out there and like Pards, won’t be saying “go out and play ****” 2points lost in the end. The fact remains though it’s a point away, and our survival is all about the manager working out how to win home.
There is a huge amount resting on Slimani - we need him to hit the ground running and get scoring from the get go. Joselu and Gayle are worthless (we should have snapped Fulhams hand off when they wanted to buy Gayle for £18m in the summer). You can argue that Rafa hasn't been willing to select Mitrovic as he is liable to get sent off but having Gayle or Joselu in the starting 11 is like being a man down too often anyway.
I think you have to credit Palace in the second half. They came out and wanted it more and worked harder (at least for 25 minutes at the start of the half). I don't know if I would blame our players a lot or not since the Palace side has far better players and they were at home so I'd expect them to play better than us. We out-fought them in the first half but we had a hard time dealing with quality players like Zaha - him versus Yedlin was a gross mis-match. Plus we couldn't a get touch of the ball for about 15 minutes at the start of the second half. It's not negative tactics when you don't have the ball for long periods - you have no choice but to defend - and we were just pegged back by cross after cross coming in. Hopefully Slimani is fit for the next game and fits in quickly - the striker situation is desperate otherwise with Gayle looking completely useless up front.
Not sure on the beelin' - we played a better side at their place and drew. Joselu is complete gash, but better than Gayle. At least Joselu, with all his massive limitations, tries. Gayle? Horrible player. Agree it's honestly impossible to see what Rafa's thinking putting either ahead of Mitrovic. On to the next one, which we'll lose.
Refused? I thought it was more Rafa didn’t wanted replacements in first, same with Darlow. Hopefully both will be gone this summer.
Positives: We played well for good stretches in the first half and if we had put that chance away at the start of the second then we'd probably be celebrating 3 points right now. Kenedy is now our best player, he's a class above anyone else we've got. Diame is in great form. Slimani will come in and cannot be worse than any of our current options, leading the line in front of play through from Kenedy/ Shelvey/Diame/ Ritchie if he's any sort of upgrade then we should start to look better for the rest of the season. Negatives: Our defence looked much more suspect than previously in the season, errors abound. We can complain about soft penalties but it was only Palace profligacy which allowed us to take a point away in the end. We are dropping points regularly at the moment and seem to invite teams back in to games, draws are decent but we need wins and you can just see us drifting around the relegation zone from now until May. Merino - a shadow of the player he looked like earlier in the season.
