This is as good as football gets, two of the most exciting teams in world football battling it out in what's sure to be an exhilarating display of flair and technical superiority. Yep, it's West Ham vs Crystal Palace! One for the neutrals surely, get your predictions in here. An exciting score line of 0-0 Both teams to have 25% possession each, with the ball out of play 50% of the time. 3 broken legs 3 red cards
Big fat sam to moan for ten minutes about not getting a throw in and telling everyone how the decisions always go against him
Teams come out snarling at each other. This continues for the next 110 minutes. When the players tire of snarling the managers take up the mantle. Palace unleash their particular brand of visionary, total football which is to cunningly place 10 men in their own final third and commence their time honoured ritual of wasting time. West Ham radically alter their tactics, showing a fluidity and flexibility that would be beyond most teams, and start constantly hoofing the ball high towards the head of Andy Carroll, looking for a knockdown to the feet of an in-running, they-would-say-stocky-others-would-say-fat midfield dynamo. On the 43rd time of asking Kevin Nolan connects with the knockdown and scuffs a shin shot past the keeper and in off the post. Just. 1-0 Palace respond by changing absolutely nothing, but hopefully relying on something happening. It does. In the eighth minute of injury time, caused entirely by their own time wasting, Palace launch a free kick into the West Ham area. In desperation they have sent an additional 2 players up for this final assault, and it pays off, as between the 3 of them the Palace players manage to push and shove, just this side of legal, to allow the ball to land at the feet of Jason Puncheon who lashes the ball into the net from a yard out and runs off to enjoy one last snarl. 1-1 Pulis hails his team's workman like performance, fully deserving of a point, and praises their ability to keep going until the end. Alladyce is booed by his own supporters for having the audacity to keep them in the Premier League, but not play the West Ham way. Surely it's better to lose every week, be in the bottom tier of English football and go out of business, than to have the spirits of Bobby, Geoff and Trevor defiled in this manner on a weekly basis?
