Which is what everyone else needs to do. This should be in Away Fans for a start and why we're giving so much of our time to , what I suspect, is either a Geordie troll or a Weed windup merchant is beyond me. Just ignore him and he'll go away.

Bexley Dave

Can you hear the Brighton sing? I can't hear a ******* thing!

"The most arrogant, obnoxious bunch of deluded little sun tanned, loafer wearing mummy's boys I've ever had the misfortune of having to listen to" (Burnley forum)

It's not about starts. It's about minutes. He's had the best goals to minutes played ratio in the PL after: Aguero, Diego Costa, Alexis Sanchez, Walcott, Kane, Vardy, Sturridge, Firmino, Lukaku, Bony, Rooney, Ighalo and that's pretty much all. He's tied with Benteke behind them. That's a pretty impressive company

Well managers need strikers who can play whole games. He has good numbers per minute, but sorry, I'd take everyone on your list before Gayle. I wanted him to do well last season, but he didn't. 3 Prem goals in 16. I know he was injured a lot, but the narrative on why we sucked second half of last season was our strikers could not score.

Season before that 5 goals in 29 games. Forgive me for not being excited --MacArthur already has 5 this year.

Something like 5 Palace managers ran the rule over him and decided that while he was a great natural goal scorer, the rest of his game was wanting. All the best to him in the Championship.

Gayle was similar to Chicharito and Wellbeck a t United. He seems to have played many games. But, in truth, the manager only sent him in a few minutes. Therefore, what do we count?
The number of games or the number of minutes of all the players involved?
I'm going with the number of minutes. Some might think that it'a easier to score if you come in near the end, when everyone is tired, but it's not. Players need consistency, they can't reach that if they play only 10 minutes every game. So it's just as hard for a sub as it is for a starter.

Keeping in mind ONLY THE MINUTES, Gayle was awesome for a mid table team like Palace.
Likewise, Chicharito was awesome for Man Utd. His ratio was I think the best in the league. For every 100 minutes or even less the guy had at least 1 goal or 1 assist.

Yet, Utd's manager never made him a starter. Did he not cement himself? Was he not good enough? No. He was and beyond. It's just that the manager insisted with someone else. His faith was given to another player. Unjustified, unfair, but managers do that. Bad managers. And there is a plethora of them.
Chicharito suffered the same at Real. But then he went to Germany and rocked! He is one of the best 5 strikers in the league and many major Premier League teams want him back. He proved himself.
Though, may I say, he had always proven himself in the little minutes he had. He just wasn't appreciated.

And Gayle's and Chicharito's styles are very similar: hard working, kind of average height strikers, very fast, not amazingly technically but all heart.

Loosing Gayle wasn't Palace's only mistake in the last seasons. There were more though:

1. Puncheon was a great player 2-6 years ago, he was a contender for the England shirt. He should have been selected the entire 2014/25 campaign. Do you know what position Puncheon played when he was that good? He was a winger. Either on the left or on the right.
He's been rubbish the last 2 years, mainly since he started playing in the center. Having a left footed winger brings you points. The left foot brings you either goals or assists. Leicester won the Championship with this.

Puncheon stats:
12/13- 11 goals and assists combined in 2.000 minutes
13/14- 11 goals and assists combined in 2.500 minutes
14/15- 13 goals and assists combined in 2.800 minutes
15/16- 5 goals and assists combined in 2.600 minutes
16/17- 3 goals and assists combined in 1.200 minutes

Not seeing the potential in Tom Ince at the end of the 14/15 season, when you could have taken him on a free, lost you another great left footed winger. He's now probably the best player winger in the Championship, definitely Premier League material and still young.
Though, I can't attribute that to Pardew, as he wasn't in the club at that time.

2. Still, Crystal has 3 left footed wingers: Townsend, Puncheon and Sakho. I like all 3 of them, but Townsend's pace is something special.
But, for God's sake, at least use 1 of them as LEFT WING.

Only Puncheon is technically gifted enough to play as inverted winger.
But Townsend and Zaha are not. They're just simple, plain , pacy wingers.
In the end of the Chelsea game, Pardew screwed up everything. Palace was trying to get back one goal and he sent in Townsend on the right and moved Zaha on the left.
He killed them both with this move!!!! Palace didn;t have at least an opportunity in the last minutes. No chances were created. And we all just wanted to see something!

3. There's the fullback issue. Honestly, the best thing right now would be to use Lee as right back in the matches against low half sides, while Ward could be used in matches vs top 6 teams. On the left, keep one of Souare (sell him while he still has value, I'm not impressed by him) or Fryers and get an offensive left back, fast!!
Although, the team would pretty much need 4 new fullbacks if we say the truth.

It's just that Pardew is not good. If you make an analysis you realize that. That's all I'm saying. Maybe I'm right, maybe I'm not. But I've been saying things since Chicharito wasn't used at United.
I was right about Coutinho at Inter, Vidal at Leverkusen, Bale was a left back at Tottenham (ok, everyone could see that guy), di Maria at United, de Bruyne at Chelsea, Rose at Tottenham (when Pochettino wanted to ditch him), Gameiro at Sevilla (when he was NOT playing because of Carlos Bacca), Immobile who wasn't given time at Borussia or Sevilla and pretty much EVERYTHING I've said in the past 10 years.

Because I understand this game, I know things other people don't, I can see them in advance. Now I'm rambling, but if you want or don't want to believe me, it's up to you.

Edited by mattteo (21 Dec 2016 10.29am)

Ha ha ha, this is a windup, right?

Either that, or he's living in his Gran's cellar after his parents kicked him out.

If you come to a fork in the road, take it.