this was one of my biggest criticisms of Pardew. Completely destroyed his confidence by continuing to play him there, would have rather we'd played Fryers, he'd have been just as bad but we wouldn't have been ruining a very decent squad player. Some players never manage to come back from that kind of confidence loss, glad he seems getting there.

When he was getting slated when he was playing full back I said he had a good game at centre back in the pre-season friendly against the mighty Bromley

The vast improvement in all our centre backs is down to one man and that's Luka

The guy has been a giant in protecting the defence .

Kelly has always struck me as a decent defender but like all defenders needs support and protection from the midfield ,its not an option its the way it should be and thankfully now is at the Palace .

He didn't, Ward was made to play LB and Kelly was on the right. A disaster both sides of the pitch really......

Funny enough, only a couple of days ago I was speaking to someone on the coaching side of another PL club and he expressed this exact opinion.

in this Article: [Link] it defines Kelly As :
A natural central defender who can play right-back at a push, Kelly was drowning as Pape Souare’s emergency cover. He is now playing at a starter level at centre-back, to the extent that if Mamadou Sakho departs at the end of his loan spell (as is widely expected) then Palace may not splash out on a position that was previously a desperate need

personally would still want to get in another if Sakho goes.

"It was a Team effort, I guess it took all players working together to lose this one"