October 9 2007

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor’s reign as Crystal Palace manager ended against Hull City, the team where he had so much success in recent times, writes Simon Pophale.

When the final whistle blew on Saturday, all the signs were there that the sacking of Taylor was imminent. It is not the first time that the signs were at Selhurst Park of a sacking, personally I had seen it three times before.

When Alan Smith got the boot the second time, it was the home match with Wolves that saw him do the same walk, although this time he was pelted with season ticket books as this was our last home game of the season.

Trevor Francis was the same too; he walked alone back to the dug-out, seemingly lost the faith of his team, his players and the supporters. Steve Kember also made the same long walk too, but survived until we got thumped away at Wigan, which ended his tenure the following week.

At the end of the match, the boos rang around Selhurst Park and Taylor cut a lone figure as he trudged back, for the last time, into the dressing room as the Palace manager. No sooner had he disappeared down the tunnel, the jeers turned to cheers as the faithful showed their appreciation for the efforts of the players. A clear sign that, while the team is not winning, it is the manager that has become the target for the blame.

Taylor should take the blame – it is his team now and his signings that he has to stand by. Many of them were on show on Saturday – Tony Craig, Leon Cort, David Martin, Paul Dickov, Carl Fletcher, Stuart Green and James Scowcroft. Many more of them were not but he cannot say that he has not been backed by the chairman.

The money was there; it has been spent and in some cases, spent badly. Shefki Kuqi, like Ade Akinbiyi before him, will go down as an awful move. Paul Ifill has spent more time warming the bench than the flanks and Mark Kennedy, although he cost nothing, has disappointed for long spells.

Looking back at Taylor's 60 or so matches in charge, it is not easy to pick out wonderful moments. He might have come out constantly talking about performances and possession. “The performance was good” he has said more often than not this season. It has been brought home in the strongest possible terms that football, above all else, is a results business.

It was results that Taylor struggled with, too often we gave insipid performances at home against teams which we could and should be beating. Hull have bought well, Phil Brown has turned them into another Bolton and we could not break them down.

Leicester at home in our first match this season at Selhurst showed that we can take the lead, but then not hold on to it. We then gave the advantage away too easily – matches against Leicester (1-0 up to 1-2 down), Coventry (1-0 up to 1-1) and Charlton (0-1) showed that we struggle to compete.

Taylor needed an inspired performance from Freedman as we overturned Sheffield United, but 3-2 was a close run match that could have gone either way. Away from home we have not been much better – although we won 4-1 at Southampton, we have struggled since losing at Plymouth, Ipswich and Norwich as well as being dumped out of the Carling Cup at Bristol Rovers.

Yet Taylor kept on saying “the performances were good”. Peter, take off those rose-tinted glasses and see that they have been shocking at best! We were awful in the first half against Hull, not much better in the first half against Sheffield United, poor against Charlton and got lucky against Leicester. With just two wins from 11 matches, how can it be good enough?

“Its Taylors’ fault your s**t” shouted the Hull fans on Saturday. We had nothing to reply back to them. They were right, although they had no reason to be unhappy. Taylor took them from League Two to the Championship.

Even last season, there was no sign after November that we would make the play-offs.

A good start and a good finished sandwiched in between an appalling run of matches that saw us not win a match from September to December. It cost our promotion push.

Simon Jordan gave Taylor a brief – deliver promotion and gave him a contract for two years for this goal. He failed and SJ took a brave decision to axe the former winger now, before it is too late to mount any kind of challenge.

The challenge now is for SJ to get someone else in, who can deliver promotion. He only goes for people who are not currently employed, so that shortens the list of available candidates. A sad end for a popular figure, which every Palace fan hoped would succeed.