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Crystal Palace vs Chelsea (PL) Sat 4th January 25 15:00 GMT

WhiteWall said:
Can't see this side making Champions League to be honest. Mentally weak and the manager's substitutions and timing of are pretty poor tbh.

6th - 8th for me, I reckon.
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Yes, back to reality. Improvements needed in personnel, mentality and game.

 
Another game where we didn’t deserve to win.

The results have been poor but the performances in those last 4 games is the real worry for me.

We haven’t even been unlucky in these games, we’ve generally got what we’ve deserved.

We play well for a bit, fail to score enough goals when we’re on top and then allow the opposition back into the game.

We haven’t got a winners mentality.

 
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Once we lose control of a game we struggle to wrestle it back.

We're crying out for a proper DM to bring off the bench to help us see out games like this. Glad to see Lesley is finally getting minutes for Southampton, maybe he can fill that role in the squad for us when he comes back...

 
Victor90 said:
We've grinded out games better with Maresca, but I don't see a massive improvement in the team like others keep going on about.

The defence is still sh*t.

Poch barely had a starting 11 for the majority of the season and had to find new ways of playing to accommodate, not saying he was perfect by any stretch but he was managing under some sh*tty circumstances.

Maresca has had more availability and far more depth to choose from. I've gave the manager credit where it's due, but I'm still far from sold with him, we'll be in midtable by the end of Jan at this rate. 
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I never rated Pochettino, but he had excuses, Maresca doesn't. Maresca inherited a team in good spirits, without the same injuries, but he's not improved them, if anything, he's gradually making them worse. His team selections have become predictable, our style of football is predictable, and now that teams have found a way to nulify Cucurella's inverted full back role, he hasn't got a clue what to do.

 
😮‍💨 a point. I had 2-2 in predictor so a slight selfish silver lining 

predictable turning on manager same as the high praise he got when we were challenging a month ago😅

The busy festive fixtures have merely separated the wheat from the chaff, Lavia is a big miss there is a distinct lack of midfield control wo him. As for Maresca he’s not going anywhere if anything the owners will be thinking of how well overall he has done since August. I for one am still surprised how good the form was until just before the end of the year. Despite any ill sentiment by fans like us lot he derserves enough time to find solutions to this poor streak,  a few goals v Morecamb would go a long way imo. 

 
Silver lining is this is a wake up call for the club and the fans. Last couple of games showed that this team has a bunch of sh*t players that need to be discarded. 

 
Just a coincidence or not, we started playing the sh*t the moment he started yapping about that we can’t compete. 
 

 
Scott Harris said:
I never rated Pochettino, but he had excuses, Maresca doesn't. Maresca inherited a team in good spirits, without the same injuries, but he's not improved them, if anything, he's gradually making them worse. His team selections have become predictable, our style of football is predictable, and now that teams have found a way to nulify Cucurella's inverted full back role, he hasn't got a clue what to do.
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Once our goals dried up, the problems came back.

We do tend to score our way out of trouble, our defending is just not good enough which is why I laughed at the notion of us being title challengers. 

Jackson doesn't offer enough and if it wasn't for his goals he would be getting bullied more than Morata did for his pitiful performances on the pitch. Now that he's in a draught we're finally seeing how little he offers in the striker role. I don't mind him as a rotational player, but I don't think he's good enough to be our starting striker. Nkunku has completely checked out, Noni appears to be having issues with the manager, Neto and Sancho don't have a lot of goals in their game, we have to rely on Palmer every single game.

I'm worried now, I can't see how we'll turn it around anytime soon. I'm not excited for the return of Lavia, he's an unreliable player, it'll only be another few games of him until he's out again anyway. 

 
General said:
😮‍💨 a point. I had 2-2 in predictor so a slight selfish silver lining 

predictable turning on manager same as the high praise he got when we were challenging a month ago😅

The busy festive fixtures have merely separated the wheat from the chaff, Lavia is a big miss there is a distinct lack of midfield control wo him. As for Maresca he’s not going anywhere if anything the owners will be thinking of how well overall he has done since August. I for one am still surprised how good the form was until just before the end of the year. Despite any ill sentiment by fans like us lot he derserves enough time to find solutions to this poor streak,  a few goals v Morecamb would go a long way imo. 
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He's doing things very differently in the last 5 PL games, and seems to have sucked all the belief out of the squad. That's why he's getting some criticism.

 
Victor90 said:
Is that true though?

No idea why Poch gets a lot of blame for it when we've had injury problems for years now. 
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Yes. The manager sets training schedules, decides how long to let players recover, decides whether to rotate (if at all). The physios can make assessments and then make recommendations to the management team but there's no guarantee they'll be listened to.

I read an interview with (I think) Neil Bath a little while ago (which I can no longer find) who talked about the problems under Pochettino, particularly as Poch appointed his son as Head of Sports Science/Head Fitness Coach while he was at Chelsea, with the Physio team reporting to him.

Obviously the manager has no control over whether a player suffers a horror leg-breaking tackle or a clash of heads or drops a bottle of salad dressing on his foot, but there is a great deal he can control.

 
PloKoon13 said:
Yes. The manager sets training schedules, decides how long to let players recover, decides whether to rotate (if at all). The physios can make assessments and then make recommendations to the management team but there's no guarantee they'll be listened to.

I read an interview with (I think) Neil Bath a little while ago (which I can no longer find) who talked about the problems under Pochettino, particularly as Poch appointed his son as Head of Sports Science/Head Fitness Coach while he was at Chelsea, with the Physio team reporting to him.

Obviously the manager has no control over whether a player suffers a horror leg-breaking tackle or a clash of heads or drops a bottle of salad dressing on his foot, but there is a great deal he can control.
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But our injury crises predate Pochettino, we had massive amounts of injuries under Lampard, Tuchel, Potter aswell. I wouldn't be so optimistic things are different now, I would dare say this season has just been an anomaly. 

 
petre ispirescu said:
What a sh*t run of games and what a stupid way to lose that many easy points. Fulham and Palace we lost five points from a winning position very late in the game, Ipswich beat us in a match they could not string four passes together. Bet Palace can't believe their luck today how they did not concede at least four is beyond any imagination, yet the match ended in a draw. f**king frustrating.
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I can think of one reason. Our striker had more attempts on goal than any other player.  We had one shot on target and it weren't him.

 
PloKoon13 said:
Yes. The manager sets training schedules, decides how long to let players recover, decides whether to rotate (if at all). The physios can make assessments and then make recommendations to the management team but there's no guarantee they'll be listened to.

I read an interview with (I think) Neil Bath a little while ago (which I can no longer find) who talked about the problems under Pochettino, particularly as Poch appointed his son as Head of Sports Science/Head Fitness Coach while he was at Chelsea, with the Physio team reporting to him.

Obviously the manager has no control over whether a player suffers a horror leg-breaking tackle or a clash of heads or drops a bottle of salad dressing on his foot, but there is a great deal he can control.
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If it was anything to do with Pochettino's training methods then surely you'd have seen this happening every season at every club he'd ever managed, which simply wasn't remotely the case. 

It was just a lazy narrative that the anti-Tottenham brigade were happy to amplify, as it suited their agenda perfectly.

 
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