Roy needs to have his hand shaken in the summer, back patted and off on his merry way.

They need to line up a new manager to take us to stability and actually back the bloke.

This was once a quality forum....

I am as frustrated as anybody with Roy's line-ups and inability to sub anyone but it would be madness to get rid of him. His positives far outweigh his negatives. This team is the most stable, consistent and arguably plays the highest quality football Palace has ever played. We are a solid PL team now - that's a huge improvement - and there's always a worse manager just around the corner.

Against Watford, we were fortunate to get the first goal. It was always on the cards from watching the game that changes needed to be made. It's easy to say in hindsight, and don't forget that if Gaita wasn't injured and our chances went in we could have won this game. Hennessey wasn't near any of their goals. I never did like Kouate starting over Meyer because Meyer offer more possession in midfield. I never liked Ayew starting over Wickham or Benteke because they are more threatening and would force Watford not to press forward so much. They would cost Watford defenders, allowing more space and less attention for Townsend, Zaha etc. As it was, Watford must have felt little risk in pressing our defence, which was weakened with Hennessey. They had players to spare to push forward. And that is what was observed happening - but still no subs. Roy just did nothing. Typical behaviour of someone over 70 years old. Roy has cost us points, yes, but he's also responsible for the points we do have. So what do you do?

Edited by Bald---Eagle (13 Jan 2019 4.43am)

Edited by Bald---Eagle (13 Jan 2019 4.47am)

I'm intrigued to know how you think that the "over expectations of their fans" will bring about their relegation

Big old chunk of hindsight in this post.

I thought Kouyate had a really good game yesterday, him and Luka are a solid central midfield partnership. He does a lot of the unglamarous work and many times filled in for AWB at right back to allow him to bomb forward. I'm a fan of Meyer (and I suspect he would have come on had one of the subs having to be used for the goalkeeper) but do you think he would have stood a chance for 90 mins against their physical team?

Ayew started because he has scored in his last 2 games for palace. We would be questioning the sanity of any manager had he then been dropped for a Wickham or a partially fit Benteke. That said, Benteke did give us a totally new dimension and whilst his record over the last couple of years isn't great I'm sure he will be starting once he is fit.

It's always a gutting one to lose when you have the lead and end up losing the game, but Watford are a really strong mid-table team.

I’m frustrated with Roy’s non existent in game management but the players should take the blame for that v Watford. Roy will probably keep us up but he’s not the answer longer term. I wouldn’t be confident with his transfers or cementing a playing style for the longer term. It was palatable last season because the results were so good being on the right side of the fine margins when playing a game of 2-3 chances between both sides in the whole match.

We just have to grit our teeth through this football for a few more months and hope Parish is looking at new managers and not planning 7 holidays with no new manager ideas this summer. Sadly I’m not confident on that one, new girlfriend to impress and all that. Maybe he should impress her and do his holidays long haul in February. More impressive, interesting and exciting anyway.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (13 Jan 2019 9.23am)

COYP

If we had an actual striker who knew how to score a goal we would be a lot higher up the league competing with Watford in 7th. I do have a degree of sympathy for Roy because some of the opportunities we continue to throw away are frankly laughable. However as we all can see Roy is a stickler for continuity. Another way of looking at it is he has nothing else to offer than the same thing over and over again. No tactics, no plan B, no in game management, no change of formation. Particularly at home this is really, really poor. It is obvious to all Roy does not have the answer to our woeful home form. I do not want him out at this juncture BUT I think Roys taken us as far as he can as far as the future is concerned. Watching these inept performances in ground hog day mode at Selhurst week in week out is becoming a real tough watch. We all knew how the game was going to turn out when once again we did not take our opportunities yesterday. Roy just does not seem able to react.