Leaving aside the right full back position, and the absence of any competition for Edouard and Mateta, a fully fit first team is as good as anything in the mid table positions, and better than some below that.

Hughes is not an attacking midfield player, but he is an experienced midfield player. Lerma I think has done well recently. I'm not sure what you're expecting from him exactly.

Your suggestion of putting two raw ( certainly in Franca's case ) substitutes on in a tight game makes no sense to me.

Old, Ungifted and White

FFS - Freedman should get some praise for bringing these guys in, but let's be honest, anyone with a half decent knowledge of the EFL knew all 3 were big talents. Guehi has been known since his England U17 winning performances and i think made the Champ team of the season. Olise was voted EFL young player of the year.

Brentford bought Watkins from Exeter for £1m and Toney from Posh for £5m - now that's identifying good, young talent.

Whats the matter wiv ya, we got Richards, Tompkins & Holding, no probs.

This operation, will make the 'Charge Of The Light Brigade' seem like a simple military exercise.

Went along yesterday and it's the first time I've ever been to the London Stadium. Thought it was an awful experience.

After first being pleasantly surprised at how close it was the Westfield / Stratford Station, my spirits were dampened at a 20 minute queue just to get through the security check.

We then spent another 20 or so minutes queuing to get into the ground, with them refusing to let more than about 50 of our fans through at a time which understandably pissed a lot of people off. Despite arriving around half an hour before KO, I didn't get to the seats until 10 minutes into the match.

Inside the ground (we were upper tier) I could not believe how far back we were from the pitch. There was an enormous empty area with no seats or anything between us and the pitch, needed bloody binoculars.

It was just as horrendous getting out of the ground and to the station afterwards.

Honestly, I know our ground has a bad rep and the facilities are s*** but that's one of the worst matchday experiences I've ever had. The only positive thing I can say is that we could stand up.

As for the game? Well, ending it with a 4-4-2 with Olise up front and Riedewald on the left wing just about summed this season and Roy up for me.

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold...

Any player that isn’t selected by Roy automatically becomes a much better player in some people’s eyes. The fact that Franca is a youngster in a new country, just settling in, doesn’t matter just throw him in straight away and completely ruin his confidence.

After describing yesterday's match as 'soporific' The Times' editorial team clearly decided that Palace were not worthy of a place in the Prem.

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Dad and I watched games standing on the muddy slope of the Holmesdale Road end. He cheered and I rattled.