December 17 2012

Glenn Murray

A 2-2 draw was a disappointing result away to Birmingham City, reflects Jamesey.

I personally watched the Eagles throw away 2 points at home last week (Dec 8) after conceding a late goal to Blackpool but it was doubly gut-wrenching to listen to a radio commentary and hear how we tossed away another brace of points at St Andrews and drew what looked like a comprehensive victory for most of the game.

Another two goals from Glenn Murray (will he ever stop scoring? I hope not) after an hour's play made the game look reasonably secure. But no, the Bluenoses got back into the game and scored two in the last quarter.

Before I am accused of being too churlish (Churlish? Moi?) it has to be said that we are still in second place in the Championship and are still strong promotion contenders - and top dogs Cardiff exhibited a bigger wobble than us by losing at home to bottom dogs, Peterborough.

The reasons why I am getting nervous this season is because I think we have the best team we have had for years. And it is a team that, as long as we could hang on to most of them, I believe could hold its own in the Stacksocash League and stay there unlike the Dowie squad in '04 who never looked like clinging on for more than one campaign.

As I have said before I am not exactly in the prime of life and if I am to be able to watch top tier football at Selhurst again, it had better be soon. In fact the sooner the better.

I have already bought my '13-14 concessionary season ticket in the Arfur for the sum of £240 - excellent value for the Championship and unbelievable value for the Pilesodosh League.

The above might explain why am particularly anxious for us to do ourselves justice for the rest of the season, gain automatic promotion and have at least one season amongst the elite again.

As I wrote above, I only listened to the BBC sports commentary on the Birmingham fixture but an old friend and sparring partner, Peter, who goes to most of the away games, was there. I include his report below.

"My old pal Jamesey asked me how we managed to lose this game after being in such a commanding position. It was easy - Andre Moritz missed from 10 yards for 3-0, after a great pass by Wilfried Zaha. Then the Birmingham manager brought on 6' 7" Zigic who scored after being on the pitch for 2 minutes.

King should not have been allowed to get the cross in as there were five Palace defenders "watching" the passage of play. Birmingham's 2nd goal was even worse - three Palace players played 'tippy tappy' on the wing, lost the ball and gave away a corner. From the cross Diop scored.

Palace players seem to think that when we are ahead there is no need to defend but in the Championship, the game is not won until it is over. We certainly missed Mile Jedinak.

I watched the "highlights" (the goals) on the Football League Show who mentioned that Brum have equalised in previous games when they have been 2 or 3 down.

We cannot continue throwing points away; the Show wondered whether Palace might regret dropping these points at the end of the season.

We should have beaten Hull, Blackpool and Birmingham which would have put us 4 points clear of Cardiff. Looking ahead we must beat Cardiff on Boxing Day.

Returning to Saturday's match, Yannick Bolasie was outstanding and it was nice to see Glenn Murray signal '20' to the Palace fans but the half-time chants of "We are top of the league" were short-lived.

Butland made some good saves at crucial times in the first half, otherwise it might have been 5-0 to Palace which I was predicting.

I cannot understand Ian Holloway's post-match comment that he was "very pleased with my team"; it is the second successive Saturday that Palace have not defended as well as they have in previous games. Ollie must address this quickly or we could lose our top two position.

We met friendly Brum fans in a home pub before the game and all of them were sure Palace would win.

If one reflects on last season's result at St Andrews, where Palace lost 3-1, I suppose it is an improvement but if Palace are to go up automatically they must keep WINNING.

It was so disappointing that we did not win when we knew Cardiff were losing to Peterborough. This proves any team can beat another on the day.

On a personal note my wife has banned me from attending the Cardiff match "as Christmas is a family affair".

I am hoping to attend ALL the away fixtures in 2013 in the belief that this is our year."

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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