A couple of years ago SP said that we should be aiming higher. To do that you need to speculate, not buy 4 ageing rejects, with 1 decent addition. 2-3 years ago I thought we had a team that was a couple of players light of getting close to Europe. Now we are hoping we can survive.

With ageing players, players with contracts expiring and not a pot to do the proverbial in, I think we could be in League 1 within 2-3 years. This was the window where we had to try and reverse the trend after a few of cost cutting. We didn’t and if we do survive we won’t be a good option for anyone to join unless we are prepared to invest.

Ok so this window sucked - bit time. What with the Wilf BS and losing AWB and getting no cover for LB or RB it's not good.

But....

We as fans have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. One thin SP did say when 2010 save the club was that we'd never be in that position again under his watch. So for my reading 'between the lines' its not a lack of ambition that's held us back but a lack of funds. Whether that's because the Yanks want out and need to get paid or because we've overspent to stay in the 'lodsadosh' league I don't know.

We're weakened, down on the canvas and hurting. Good - that's when we fire up the Palace spirit! If not then it's back to the Championship!

The first 5 or 6 games will be a good indication - COYP!

Its never easy as a Palace fan (of 53 years)....

Poor, poor management.

How on earth they’ve allowed us to go into the season without replacing our £50m right back and no recognised striker, that can actually score is totally unacceptable, negligent almost. I just can’t get my head around how they have not addressed this.

Not a good window other than the fact that some players are off the books.
Putting the WZ saga to one side we have Kelly as cover to an ageing right back and Schlupp as cover for PVA at left back - a man who had one of the worst seasons I have ever seen.
To not have used AWB money to sort this out is nothing short of criminal.
Cahill is too old and currently unfit albeit he will be a positive influence in the dressing room for sure.
I guess we are stuck with CW and Benteke up front but if they don't fire then we have problems.
I think that this window has been shambolic but it is the culmination of years of poor decision making, overspending on poor quality players as well as a very sub-standard scouting policy.
I love Freedman but i don't see him as the right man for the job.
It is not often that i feel sorry for Roy but I do now!

I think everyone has got a bit carried away, a direct result of the mega marketing machine which is the skysports transfer window which leaves fans feeling they should be splashing the cash on new additions every 6 months.
Last year we finished with our highest prem total ever, despite dropping SO many points in marginal losses/draws. Our squad from last year is down a top quality RB and Michy who’s movement and desire to challenge for the ball is even worse than Bentekes. The brace in the last game of the season saved his stats leaving him on 5 prem goals in what otherwise was a lacklustre loan spell (for the amount of wages he demands).
Henderson won’t see the pitch apart from the early rounds of the cup, Cahill will do a superb job for us for a season, McCarthy and Camarasa are quality prem proven additions and Ayew a snip for a player that will come on and can actually score a goal (albeit not as often as we’d like).
In Benteke, we have a player earning mega bucks in his last year who is clearly hungry to set the record straight. Either he bangs in a load of goals and we all hail him the new messiah by Christmas or he’s bang average again and off the wage bill by the end of the season - win/win. The fact is, with our commercials, you can’t keep splurging on 100k a week players in the hope they get us a few places higher up the league (which by the way would be a top ten finish which I’m sure we’d all take now).
Our squad is littered with premiership quality, a number of players whom could quite easily be playing for teams higher up than us in the football pyramid, and this is more than you can say about a lot of the lower/middle table prem teams.
‘We haven’t replaced AWB’, ‘we haven’t got a striker’ - correct, but understand what we’ve got, understand that you’ve been duped by Jim White and understand that with a few more performances that are turned into results we will be absolutely fine.

And what bandwagon have we stepped on instead?

There were a couple of interesting articles in the media recently about how our business model of buying ageing players with no resale value is unsustainable.

Roy Hodgson is clearly unhappy although he may not come out and complain, He stated publicly what he wanted and he didn't appear to get it although he will obviously get the blame if we don't win games.

He also stated that he didn't know what was happening with Wilf as our winger's relationship was with the chairman. Anyone who thinks that the chairman and a player being best buddies is a good idea doesn't know much about man management