We have no problem as a team defending, our problems are creating space and running off the ball while moving forward, Zaha became frustrated ..he had done enough in the first half to win this game.

..are specsavers waiting for you?

19,900 and something. Way more than I was expecting.

It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

That was a classic third round cup tie the underdogs down to 10 men against a premiership team , the only thing missing was teeming rain and mud. Grimsby should be delighted with their performance defending the way they did and brilliantly supported by their fans. As for us well we always have struggled to breakdown defensive teams going back a long way long before our current players. We have to accept it is in our DNA.
COYP

Yep, Spurs 7-0 is just boring.

I do wonder about our fans at times; yes it was Grimsby, but as soon as they went down to 10 men it was always going to be hard to break down a team that is hell bent on sitting deep and closing teh space down...we did it to the best team in teh country not more than 3 weeks ago!

Also, as a result i dont think Sorloth played that badly, he brought players into play far more than we've seen recently and actually ran about!

I was however dissappointed with Meyer, Wilf (both of whom should've shown far much more nouse and quality given the amount of posession they had) and Suoare! I think for the latter that'll be the last we see of him in a Palace shirt...apart from 2 of the best corners we've put in all season he was ...well WOEFULL. 3 times he let their right winger in behind him in the first 20mins...he was all over the place.

Dann was a sight for sore eyes though, again, it was against a team 3divs lower but his passing and threat at set pieces gives us much needed cover in that area..I also thought Reidewald played intelligentlly (esp in the period of 5mins that we were down to 10men as well).

We, as a team simply struggle to break teams down...Cardiff was a prime example of that with our full strength 11 and that simply comes down to us slowing the ball down in teh final third when instead thats when a team should in fact pick the pace up (just look at City, arsenal and liverpool when they get in to the final third).

So lets get some persepective shall we, we won, thankfully had no injuries and some players on the fringes got some much needed game time.

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World