I'm thinking along these lines .Even with a full ,fit squad we would be doing well to pick up a couple of points in the next month or so . We therefore have not lost anything. Where we lost points was at the start of the season and not turning some recent draws into wins .
OK we may , probably will drop back into the relegation spots but given our poor start I think we would all have taken going into our final games in touching distance . I'm not that worried either

As objective and well meaning as your post is, it sort of harks back to what FDB's plans for the team were and we just can't afford to buy the players of sufficient quality to play the style of football that you refer to. We thought we had an opportunity when we first signed Cabaye, but unfortunately we needed 3 other players of his quality at the same time to implement a change of style and this we could never afford. There is nothing wrong with the style of football we play however, what we should have done in the window IMO is buy a couple of the best wingers we could afford (along with Sorloth) and play to our quick breaking strengths rather than try to pass it upfield through players who are going to have a poor success rate doing that.

Rooney/Sigurdsson were excellent yesterday and ran the midfield but they still spent a lot of time looking to utilise Walcot's pace over the top, so they too see the merit of pace down the wings.

If you want to build for the future and slowly evolve a style then fine, however we don't have the money to do it all at once and we do spend most of our time fire fighting, so we play the way that we think we are going to get the results we need.

I am not arguing with you by the way, I just feel that it is impossible without a more or less complete change of squad to do what you have suggested.

Post removed as it adds nothing to the debate but is merely a dig at a forum member for having a different view to yourself

Edited by Midlands Eagle (11 Feb 2018 11.57am)

Currently Bournemouth who are on 31 pts are losing 1-0 to an early Huddersfield goal ! Perhaps Bournemouth now feel relatively safe and whilst they might feel under less pressure as a result, can lead to a degree of complacency.

I believe I have mentioned before, I cannot see us picking up too many points in the next 5 games - we just pray that our rivals also go through a somewhat barren spell during this period.

Edited by Willo (11 Feb 2018 12.16pm)

Now 1-1 !

For me it’s an attitude shift that has to occur and it’s the acceptance that we will inevitably have to take a step back to take 2 forward. I don’t accept the FdB soundbites that we’ve become accustomed to hearing as no one knows where we would’ve ended up under him, we never gave it a chance, but let’s not open that can of worms as the HOL is hardly a place sympathetic to anything beyond results.

I don’t think we don’t, or at least haven’t had the resources to achieve this. It’s a culture thing, an identity. It’s all well and good saying this is the “Palace way” but no one actually knows what that means. Whatever it does mean is a hopeless scrape for survival every single year and a pat on the back for everyone thinking we’ve come a lot further than we actually have. It’s all artifical and short term.

In the last 5 years we’ve had the 5th biggest net spend in the premier league, which is quite staggering when you think about it. But the return on investment we’ve seen exposes the complete lack of understanding of the modern game and lack of vision for the club coming from Parish and the yanks. I accept the last transfer window was shocking but I fully expect us to compensate in the Summer if we do survive. Spending money isn’t the problem. For me, our problems go a lot deeper than money and the aimless throwing s*** at the wall and seeing what sticks and how long it sticks for is exactly what we need to come away from. There are deep rooted and ideological attitudes rife at Palace & I never really saw that until we came to this crossroad. I don’t remember such negativity, not in our last PL reign or ever towards trying to progress footballing wise. I think its partly a societal media thing but was also partly birthed from Pardews attempt to “play out from the back” (and that’s a very generous way of putting the chaotic nonsense he served up) and I fear that whole debacle will be a stain that’s difficult to ever remove from the clubs strategic processes which is a shame.

Edited by Mstrobez (11 Feb 2018 1.34pm)

We're the Arthur over ere!