Totally outclassed by Chelsea today.

Well, we would be. They have lots of money and spend it. We, seemingly, have no money. At least, we don't spend it. It is a frightening thought, when you look at that Chelsea midfield, that Loftus Cheek wouldn't make their 3rd XI. And yet we drool at the prospect of signing him.

Any of the top six sides, if they hit their stride, can hammer you 5-0 or worse. Today, Chelsea cut us to shreads.

And yet this was the same Chelsea side that lost 2-5 to West Brom seven days ago. So what West Brom achieved was an existential performance. Perhaps Allardyce got his tactics right and Hodgson got his wrong.

So when was the last time Palace put in a performance that defied economic determinism?

What did we learn today?
That eight times out of ten, Chelsea will beat Palace. That we play the likes of Ayew, Ward, van Aanholt and Milivojevic because, presumably, we don't have anyone better than those players. They are completely out of their depth at this level. I find the preference for Ayew over Townsend completely inexplicable.
That Eze can look a world beater against Sheffield United but today we learned that he is light years behind the likes of Havertz, Pulisic, Mount. He'll improve, but at the end of the day, he's a £20m player. Economics again.
If Cahill hadn't put in an existential performance, it would have been north of six goals conceded.
That the game was all over after ten minutes because you need an existential effort to come back from that and we just don't have the spirit.
Zaha is arguably one of the top ten Palace players of all time. He's also hugely over-hyped and would not be in the starting eleven for any top six side. He is petulant, easy to wind up, thinks he's been fouled every time he touches the ball. he has no special chemistry with Benteke, so why pair them together up front? His talismanic importance to us is not in the end a healthy thing. There will of course be those who point out that when he doesn't play we don't win. The Chelsea full back had him completely in his pocket all afternoon. His existential importance lessens by the match.
So there we are. When we first got in the top flight in the late sixties we used regularly to be thumped by the big teams. It's happening again. The issue is whether we want to continue in the top flight, escaping relegation every year, but never threatening to break into the top ten and as someone memorably put it in a recent post, going out of the Carabao to Rochdale on penalties. Some, many, would say that this is all that counts, no matter how excruciating the football (our performance against Brighton at home this year was right out of the bottom drawer). Or do we re-invent ourselves as a club that will never have the money to compete (economics again) so we look to our Academy. Existentialism. Team of the Eighties, anyone?

Given the power of economics, if we stay in the top flight, today's result will happen several times a season.

I've described the arguments battered about in the Roy Out thread as reflecting an existential crisis, and whilst I'm sure at least one of us is using the term incorrectly, I think you are totally correct to look at the bigger picture.

Fans expectation of more entertainment is entirely reasonable and immature at the same time. The players we have are both a massive waste of money and close to being a bargain overall. We spend more on one player in Eze than used to be our entire budget, yet a third of the league we are in spends more on a reserve defender than that, so what expectations should we have? There is no joy to be had in watching us play, but even less in seeing us play differently and lose. A near decade in the top flight is all our dreams come true and a waking nightmare too.

Against this, does it really matter if Roy goes or stays?

It is not within our owners gift to change the economic structure of Premier league football.

I don't think that the OP does either judging by his misuse of vocabulary

Is that the first google meaning you got when you searched for it?

I know none of us want the top monied clubs of the Premier League breaking away into some Euro Super League, but I can’t help thinking it’s heading that way