I couldn't agree more. The truth is, we desperately do need to win something and it's high time we did. Plenty of other clubs at what you could loosely call our level aren't habitual winners but have lifted a trophy at least once; Southampton, Ipswich, Wigan, and Coventry's FA Cup wins all spring immediately to mind.

The real pity is that we should have crossed that bridge; in both our FA Cup finals we were only ten to fifteen minutes away from lifting the trophy; particularly in our most recent final Pardew's stupidity more or less threw the opportunity away. When the manager should have been battening down the hatches and barking instructions to get behind the ball, the moron was dancing a jig on the touchline, so far up his own arse that reality ceased to matter.

I think this is a golden era regardless of whether we win something or not simply because we've never have, or have really even come close to, such a sustained period in the top flight. But that doesn't mitigate the fact that winning a trophy would take us up to an even better level.

Vieira needs to, and I'm sure he will throw the kitchen sink at the FA Cup. While it's likely true that if we beat Everon, we'll have a mountain to climb to win the trophy given the other three likely semi-finalists, in one hundred and eighty isolated minutes of football, you never know. And, looking at how Leicester have pushed on since winning the league and then the Cup in recent years, the exposure (not least through European football) would take us to a level we've never reached before.

By the way, I believe I am right in thinking we still have at least an outside chance of European football next season via our league position?

As I understand it, the top four make the Champions League. Likely Liverpool, Man City, Chelsea, and (for argument's sake) Arsenal.

Fifth place and the FA Cup winners make the Europa League. If the FA Cup winners are in the top four (which is probable, and if they're not it most likely means Palace have won the FA Cup if we beat Everton) then sixth place also makes the Europa League. So that's likely Man Utd and Spurs in the Europa League.

The Carabao Cup winners make the Conference League, unless they're in the top four, which Liverpool are. So seventh place makes the conference league instead. On present form, maybe West Ham.

That's European football guaranteed down to seventh place.

The flys in the ointment:

If West Ham win the Europa League, then they qualify for the Champions League automatically meaning a Europa League place would go to the team finishing eighth. At the moment, that's probably Wolves. Furthermore, in that unlikely scenario, West Ham would vacate their qualification for the Europa League by finishing in seventh place, meaning Wolves would qualify by that route and the team finishing ninth would qualify instead. That'd likely be a dogfight between Villa, Southampton, us, Leicester, and Brighton.

However, if Leicester win the Conference League they'd be out of that mix (above) as they'd qualify automatically for the following season's Europa League meaning a Conference League place would go to the team that finishes tenth in the Premiership (Again, that'd likely be a dogfight between Villa, Southampton, us, and Brighton for a second European place).

Being realistic, our chances of finishing in the top eight are minimal but we do have a decent shot at finishing ninth so, if everything falls in our favour (probably wishful thinking) there is at least a possibility of European football even without winning the FA Cup. There's a lot to play for over the next two months.

Edited by sydtheeagle (16 Mar 2022 6.20pm)

Why do old men feel the need to quote Wordsworth whenever Palace draw a game? Vic Rouse never did it, well he did once I think but decided not to again.

No need Monkey, it was a historic, high street mainstay not so long ago that unfortunately went out of business.

Ha!

Didn't realise that! There's that new one where Pizza Hut used to be down be me, it's not bad in there actually but I did read a piece in the news the other day about quite a few butchers going under recently!

Perhaps it's just people tightening there belts... as all their money is being spent on Heroin. (I think that's a clever joke BTW)

I live in Brum at the moment. The trams (or at least some of them, unless I keep being passed by the same one) all seem to be named in honour of Cyrille whose name adorns them all. He was a handful, that's for sure. I believe he was known as "Bognor". Where have footballers' nicknames gone?

There's a photo somewhere of all 6 of them