Crystal Palace (A) - Sat 7th Dec, 15:00 | PL | Pre-Match Thread

[bluemoon32]

Not insightful or helpful.

Agreed but true nonetheless

 

[Goatmeal]

No doubt Palace, like many other teams seem to do, will turn into Brazil when they play us tomorrow !

It's rare that we keep a clean sheet at the moment which is understandable without a settled team. I'm just hoping to get the 3 points anyway we can but to do so we will need to be clinical and take at least two or three of the chances that we will create....

These managers in the prem are getting quite clever. They will have watched vids of recent city performances. Feyenoord, spurs and even Forest who got through a few times.
Our only defence to the ball over the top is to not lose the ball in the first place. So need confident on form players

 

[Fred_Quimby]

Is it possible that this game may be cancelled.

 

[Don Howe]

All games in Wales off tomorrow. Hmm....

 

[ninjamonkey]

Our defenders are made of glass

They're not (Stones aside) we just decided to go into a season with 6 defenders, one of which is 34. Soon as one goes down with injury the strain placed on the others to play every 3 days woth no alternatives was always going to see them all fall.

Dippers have had injuries to TAA, Bradley, konate, Robertson, tsmikas, arsenal have had injuries to white, timber, calafiori, Gabriel. The difference is, they both have the standard 8-9 defenders in a squad so they can cope with injuries and not put too much strain on the fit ones, we do not. It's entirely our own doing and piss poor squad management.

 

[Platt Lane 59]

Possibly the swiftest and most pointless press conference yet?

Quick summary of the press conference

How's Foden? Out

How's ake and akanji? Out, don't know yet.

How's stones and kovacic? Out

Kdb new contract? Nothing to do with me.

Thoughts on palace? They play good.

End.

Pep will be happy with that !
He hates Press Conferences and the infantile questions put to him.
Obviously, no mention of KDB coming back to fitness and form ?
Or Jack in a more central position tomorrow ?

 

[super_city_si]

I think we're back on the struggle bus tomorrow. Just as we got the defence sorted out its fucked again. Hopefully Kev can play again or midfield is fucked again too.

 

[supercity88]

Looking at all our injuries and absences the best hope for us tomorrow is the weather helping and a postponement tbh.

Asking a 33 year old and 34 year old to play a 2nd game in three days in midfield is asking for trouble. The back 4 will be a mish mash too. Only fair thing is to call it off and come back in April I reckon.

With Juve, Rags and Villa to come this is the game we can look to rotate. We don't have many options, which isn't ideal. But Palace away has been a pretty happy hunting ground for us, and they don't look very good this season. We can draw at Juve and it wouldn't be a disaster, but win that game and top 8 is back on - which would be positive considering the situation we're in at the moment. Then we have two games we really must win and the game just keep coming thick and fast.

 

[supercity88]

They're not (Stones aside) we just decided to go into a season with 6 defenders, one of which is 34. Soon as one goes down with injury the strain placed on the others to play every 3 days woth no alternatives was always going to see them all fall.

Dippers have had injuries to TAA, Bradley, konate, Robertson, tsmikas, arsenal have had injuries to white, timber, calafiori, Gabriel. The difference is, they both have the standard 8-9 defenders in a squad so they can cope with injuries and not put too much strain on the fit ones, we do not. It's entirely our own doing and piss poor squad management.

7 defenders - Gvardiol, Ake, Akanji, Stones, Dias, Lewis, Walker

Two of those often have injury issues, one of those was clearly looking past his best and another is young and not one we should have been relying on so your point still remains.

However, Arsenal and Liverpool might have an extra one on paper but they're generally reliant on younger players or unproven players within that count. There's no reason Simpson-Pusey can't come in and do a job on Saturday, particularly next to Dias. Liverpool have had to use Gomez and Quansah who are a considerable drop to their usual options.

Our defence would cope a lot better if we defend well ahead of them and don't give the ball away or play suicide passes as we've seen consistently in recent games - even with Gundo and De Bruyne on Wednesday.

 

[Fiftyyearsandcounting]

They've scored 12 goals in 14 games which is the 2nd worst in the division.

I always dread it when the commentators makes comment such as their CF hasn't scored this season or so and so has neve scored in the PL or their keeper has never saved a penalty.
Against City...it will happen!