Palace

[Helsinki canary 240]

Just saw Palace hold the arsenal to a 1-1 draw - these boys are flying - they defend well with excellent man marking, they get men behind the ball, their midfield can fight, win and then pass the ball and they have johnson up front who is on fire. Overall they work and move up the field as a team. The two Finns Rihilahti and Kolkka make our Swede (Jonson) and Dane (Helveg) look like jokers. They are playing with passion and dont give any respect to their opposition. Our players show too much respect, they stand off and allow huge gaps between the defence and midfield for players like Dickov to run riot in. I am sorry but unless we really start to man mark better and also sharpen the passing we are going straight down. Forget the transfer window - it will be too late by then - the next 5-6 games will decide our fate, wait till January and we have missed the boat. I got the impression already in the summer that the board had one eye stell on the 1st division and they often referred to lets do a Charlton - this means that we need to go down again, regroup - and have another go with more money in the wallet. Bunch of defeatists.

[Creative Midfielder 1,985]

Why are we still having a go at the board?

NW signed eight players in the summer, only one has done anything some far - is that the board''s fault?

IMO the team that got us up is still our strongest - although Charlton has been great I''m not convinced that as a unit this season''s defence is better than last seasons.

The problem is last season''s team isnt good enough to keep us in the Prem and it seems to me that the buck stops with the manager - he rightly got the credit for getting us up last year, this year his limitations both tactically and in selecting players have been exposed.

All part of life in the Prem but still not the Board''s fault.

[Helsinki canary 240]

Its the boards negative conotations that I am having a go at. You should never go into battle with your leaders already publicly fearing the worst - thats the oldest lesson in the book. I agree the buck stops with the coaching staff - and I mean them as a team - Foley and Livermore have just as much say as Worthy - infact I often think when watching them in the dugout that its Foley who is working the tactics, I sit right behind the dugout and can see and hear whats going on - often not alot.

[kdncfc 0]

Worthy could only work with the amount of money he was given, he obviously felt he needed to bring eight bodies into the club. He had three million pounds to play with and it is very difficult to get that number of quality players in for such a small sum. While I acknowledge that only a couple of the signings(Charlton and Jonson who is improving) look any good it still doesn''t alter the fact that if he had 10 million to spend he would have set his sights a bit higher. Therefore the board must take some of the blame.

[alex_ncfc 647]

Worthington has bought in 8 players over the summer and how many is he using? Exactly say no more. He''s wasting talent in the squad, talent he bought in and talent we already had. The sooner he get''s over this thing with his ''favourites'' (I.E - HOLT) the better. And before people write back with "Holt is a hard worker etc", hard work means NOTHING if it has no end product (I.E - HOLT)

[Creative Midfielder 1,985]

He may have felt he had to bring eight players in but that was his decision, and a rather strange one since he now doesnt appear to want use most of them. Of course if he''d had more money available he''d have set his sights higher but would he have chosen any better?

Steve Bruce spent an absolute fortune in the summer, compared to us, with very similar lack of success. Was that his board''s fault for not giving him even more money? No, he just made some poor decisions, as has NW.