The only relevance Gallagher has to Palace is that we gave him first team experience and exposure which got him an England call up and made him a) a useful squad player for Chelsea and b) a more valuable asset should they decide to sell. Without his time at Palace I doubt he’d be where he is now. I expected us to be offered similar opportunities on the back of that success.

We’re never going to be a club that spends tens of millions on players so our survival depends on picking up gems like Olise from lower leagues or loans from bigger clubs and giving them game time in the PL. AWB and CG are getting game time where they are. If we sign anyone in this window it’ll be a loan from one of the big boys who are currently outdoing each other signing World Cup players who will have to look to find game time elsewhere for surplus players. That won’t happen til the dust settles late in the window.

This is true now, as the club is presently constituted, but it is NOT an eternal truth and we should all remember that. To their credit, the current owners have built an outstanding training facility and academy. If, in a few year's time, the Old Stand is redeveloped and capacity reaches around 40,000 with a sizeable executive entertainment facility then the equation (and revenue stream) changes. We're still a London club; there will always be relatively few clubs on market, and interest from investors in the PL is unlikely to abate anytime soon. It's not beyond the boundaries of belief that the above statement won't at some point be redundant. I would say you are right that today, we obviously cannot compete with the top clubs. But what I think the owners are doing with the various redevelopments happening now is to position us to compete further down the road. The various capital expenditures increase our value and in the long term make us more attractive to prospective buyers. So it's untrue to say we'll NEVER be a club that spends millions on players. We just won't be that club in the near-term future.

Edited by sydtheeagle (18 Jan 2023 2.04pm)

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Fair point. I’m sure SP’s plan is to tap into the potential south of the river and grow the club in the way you suggest. For that to happen we need to unearth a few more AWBs while there are big spending clubs prepared to shell out 50 million. At the moment because we have brought in young players like Eze and Olise and lack a core of mature PL veterans after last season’s clear out it’s hard to see any academy graduates getting a run in the first team. Hence we loan them out to the lower leagues. It feels like the master plan is hanging in the balance. Premier league survival is essential and that takes investment just to stand still. In that regard it seems SP’s choice of “investors” falls short of what’s needed. We may indeed be a rich club one day but I fear I won’t be around to see it!

Absolutely agree with all your points. I've been saying the same thing myself.

The one thing I would add, though, is that while the run over recent weeks has been horrible (at least until last night), I have never panicked because I genuinely don't think we are that far away from being a decent side. The year Pulis dipped into the January window (from memory, Dann, Ledley, and Ince) we were completely out of our depth in the PL and it was "get help or go down". We need help badly in this window now to be sure, but I don't think collectively the side is anywhere near as weak as they were then and the threat of relegation is not quite as serious. Now standing still and not bringing anyone in this month would be playing with fire; we could yet be sucked into a relegation battle. But on balance, I think it's unlikely.

Parish's job is a balancing act and he has to be a gambler given the limitations in financial support that constrain him. Our owner's priorities are clearly capital investments that increase the value of the club so investing in bricks and mortar rather than players is their priority. But Parish is not so stupid as to fail to realise that the investments in bricks and mortar will go for naught if we're in the Championship.

I suspect that's the subject of conversation between Parish, Harris, and Blitzer right now; how much do we need to spend to protect our investment (by keeping it in the PL) given what we're already spending to increase its value long-term (rebuilding the Old Stand)? What happens in the next two weeks will tell us all about where Harris and Blitzer really stand with regard to Palace at the moment. In truth, all we really know until then is speculation.

My guess is that our owners aren't stupid (if they were, they wouldn't be billionaires) and you might just (my guess) see the purse strings being loosened a little in the next two weeks. It isn't a case of Harris and Blitzer having no money...the simple fact is that whether they want to spend it on Palace or not, they do. And smart investors (which, like it or not, Harris and Blitzer are) don't let their assets diminish in value. Lastly, it's fairly plain to see that the team needs investment; hard to believe the owners are so delusional that they can't see that.

Last night's result was, I think, significant. It changes the mood around the club and perhaps encourages everyone to see the glass that was half-empty yesterday as half-full this morning. People generally commit to pressing on when they feel good about things rather than when the mindset is negative. Let's hope the budget shackles come off in the next couple of days and Parish is given the green light to finally give his manager the support he both deserves and badly needs.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Show me a club whose shareholders have invested heavily in a stadium and surrounding infrastructure like ours.
It remains my view that to really reach for the stars we would need to show investors something more exciting and far grander than Selhurst park.
In the meantime I agree with Syd that our shareholders will drip feed sufficient funds to maintain our mid table position and therefore protect their investment.
After last night my guess would be that we will see little transfer activity. The squad and manager showed they are quite capable of maintaining our position in the premier with current personnel plus maybe one or maybe two new faces max to be certain of safety.

By the way, though I've gone 360 degrees on my view of the Conor deal over the course of this thread, I suspect suddenly that it may be "on" far more than it has been in recent months.

From what I understand Chelsea do not want to sell him, but have more or less written off this season and will probably take a long-term view of their squad rebuild in the summer. As a result, and with all their incoming transfers and overflow of players, they're willing to let a number go out on loan in January, delaying permanent decisions about their futures until the summer. Conor is/may be one of those.

If that's true, and they are happy to let Conor go for a few months, I can't imagine we won't be first in line. I don't think Newcastle would be seriously interested in him only on a four-month loan basis and if only a short-spell away from Chelsea was the deal before his long-term future at the club was decided in June, my guess is that a return to Palace and Vieira would almost certainly be Conor's preferred option.

For the first time in a long time, I can suddenly see this happening (which is not to say that I think it will).

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.