Crystal Palace (N) | FA Cup Final | Post Match Thread

We don’t have the players to do what? Win the CL or PL? Finish in the top 5? Score a goal against Southampton or Palace?

I have never seen a side with so much attacking talent look so toothless as yesterday. It all comes back to the system Pep plays. Our football is robotic and all the natural attacking instinct from the players appears to have been coached out of them.

Look at the O’Reilly chance, he simply has to hit it first time. But taking the extra two or three touches is symptomatic of this side. I lost count of the amount of times we could have hit an early cross into the box, but instead played three extra passes, before making the same cross from a worse position.
O’Reilly was trying to get it on his other foot.

Nothing to do with coaching, just a limitation of his ability.
 
What can we do if the other teams put eleven men behind the ball?? We move it trying to draw them.out, occasionally the wingers get crosses in but they're just cleared or blocked. We then run the risk of them breaking on us. We've lost the art of the little one twos around the box due to Fodens and others drop off in form. Personally I'd get more shots off quickly as there's always the chance of a deflection.
 
What can we do if the other teams put eleven men behind the ball?? We move it trying to draw them.out, occasionally the wingers get crosses in but they're just cleared or blocked. We then run the risk of them breaking on us. We've lost the art of the little one twos around the box due to Fodens and others drop off in form. Personally I'd get more shots off quickly as there's always the chance of a deflection.
Other top teams seem to know how to break those kind of tactics down & win.
 
I didn't go yesterday but it was the first cup final we have been in that I felt we weren't going to win. I honestly didn't have confidence in us at all. Something about the Southampton game and the way we played it sucked the confidence out of me. It's been one of those seasons where I have felt that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and that's how it played out. Ever since Haaland returned from injury I feared we would disruption the flow of a team that finally started to play with consistency, in order to fit him in. Two important games and zero goals, alongside not having the confidence to take a penalty, says it all for me.

I don't begrudge Palace the cup. I know a Palace fan who takes his kids home and away and this will mean everything to him. Just like how I felt in 2011. It doesn't feel as bad as Wigan or last year. I do think that the treble and four in a row has cost us more than we realise in a number of ways with this squad. It desperately needs a couple of seasons to rebuild. It feels like they have lost their hunger.
 
We lost because the manager ran out of ideas and the players are either over the hill, not good enough, can’t be arsed, or all of the above.

Absolutely disgraceful.
Or did palace play well, take their chance and deserve to win the first trophy in their history

That’s football
 
You have to move the ball quicker. So many times we go backwards but at one mile an hour. We have two wingers who don't run in behind, the centre backs pass the ball side to side without trying to break the lines, and considering the attackers on the pitch yesterday we don't even flood the box. It's all safety first and nobody wants to take responsibility. To me it's reached the point where we're genuinely boring to watch. Results like yesterday can happen but I don't feel like we're doing the utmost to even try to beat times. The football is dire and we play without any risk.
If we had full backs who could put a decent ball into the box it would help. As it was Palace could double up on our wingers yesterday and leave the full backs free without much risk.

I really don’t understand why Nunes wasn’t brought on yesterday. We all know he’s fallible when having to defend, but we didn’t have to defend in the last half hour yesterday and he does occasionally put a cross on Haaland’s head.

Nunes is another victim of this strange habit of Guardiola’s this season to play someone consistently and then get frozen out for no apparent reason.
 
I didn't go yesterday but it was the first cup final we have been in that I felt we weren't going to win. I honestly didn't have confidence in us at all. Something about the Southampton game and the way we played it sucked the confidence out of me. It's been one of those seasons where I have felt that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and that's how it played out. Ever since Haaland returned from injury I feared we would disruption the flow of a team that finally started to play with consistency, in order to fit him in. Two important games and zero goals, alongside not having the confidence to take a penalty, says it all for me.

I don't begrudge Palace the cup. I know a place fan who takes his kids home and away and this will mean everything to him. Just like how I felt in 2011. It doesn't feel as bad as Wigan or last year. I do think that the treble and four in a row has cost us more than we realise in a number of ways with this squad. It desperately needs a couple of seasons to rebuild. It feels like they have lost their hunger.
I just read about the palace flag with the two lads and their dad. Absolutely class.
Hard to lose, but palace and their fans are definitely deserving of an FA cup
Probably the best team we could lose to
 
I still don't get it. He did not play wingers in the Southampton game that we needed to win and did yesterday in a game where he could have brought them on late on and for extra time. Genuine question, when was the last time you watched one of our games and really enjoyed the football? Pep is a great manager and Haaland a great footballer but something needs fixing soon.
It’s abundantly clear to me that Haaland isn’t a great footballer. Great finisher yes, but he’s bang average at the rest of the game.
 
I woke up this morning with a rather sick feeling about yesterday.

It's like a bad dream. I wish I knew where we go from here.

It wasn't so much the loss as the manner of it.

The great side of the last dozen or so years is but a distant memory.
Yes I agree I am calling today Glum Sunday.
Tuesday is KDB's last home game I wonder how many Pep has left?
 
You have to move the ball quicker. So many times we go backwards but at one mile an hour. We have two wingers who don't run in behind, the centre backs pass the ball side to side without trying to break the lines, and considering the attackers on the pitch yesterday we don't even flood the box. It's all safety first and nobody wants to take responsibility. To me it's reached the point where we're genuinely boring to watch. Results like yesterday can happen but I don't feel like we're doing the utmost to even try to beat times. The football is dire and we play without any risk.
I was quite happy when I saw the side Pep had picked yesterday. Unlike the team he selected against Southampton. That being said I don`t think it really matters what team he picks. Our problem is with Pep`s idea of slowly pushing the opposition back which ends up with the 11 players of the opposition in their own penalty area. Our build up is so slow it allow them to get set to defend. This slow build up also makes it very difficult for our strikers to get any kind of service. I genuinely feel sorry for our forwards Haaland an Marmoush must be frustrated and bored beyond belief,
 
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Could be more of the same next season
We haven't got a team at the moment that would fight for each other .
Style of play is slow & boring .
 
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What can we do if the other teams put eleven men behind the ball?? We move it trying to draw them.out, occasionally the wingers get crosses in but they're just cleared or blocked. We then run the risk of them breaking on us. We've lost the art of the little one twos around the box due to Fodens and others drop off in form. Personally I'd get more shots off quickly as there's always the chance of a deflection.
What can we do if the other teams put eleven men behind the ball?? We move it trying to draw them.out, occasionally the wingers get crosses in but they're just cleared or blocked. We then run the risk of them breaking on us. We've lost the art of the little one twos around the box due to Fodens and others drop off in form. Personally I'd get more shots off quickly as there's always the chance of a deflection.
We've been playing against this low block for a few years now. It's not new to us. Infact I would say we alone have played against it more than any other side in England and yet we still persist with this sideways movement of the ball. We rarely if ever try nothing different. How about putting Doku or Marmoush or anybody down the middle and tell them to just run at them from there, cause some panic in their defence something they wouldn't expect, break the line up. Try something different. Doku always has two defenders on him on the wing and never once does a defender overlap him to take one away, instead we rotate it inside over and over again.
 

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