April 26 2015

Wilfried Zaha waits for a crack at the Hull goal but it was not to be - again

The Eagles lined up at Selhurst Park for the second week running. Jamesey hoped for the best against Hull City, but...

Last week Crystal Palace put on a far better performance than West Bromwich Albion but lost 0-2. A week later (April 25) the Eagles were a far worse team than Hull and again lost 0-2.

Like most home supporters, your columnist was hoping for a win against the relegation-struggling Tigers. Even though manager Steve Bruce's time at Palace is ancient history now, there's still a touch of needle whenever the Flat-nosed One returns to Selhurst.

Incidentally, this supporter rarely touches food outlets in or surrounding the ground, but desperate for sustenance I tried out the hot dog outlet facing the Main Stand and was astounded to be offered a choice of Frankfurter or Cumberland sausage.

In the area of football catering, this is almost Michelin star territory in its sophistication and I tackled the £4.50 offering with great relish. The "chien chaud" was most agreeable. Tres delicieux and I will be dining there al fresco again.

Back to the important matter in hand. As stated above, Palace were dogged by bad luck in the Baggies game and were well "out-Pulissed".

Admittedly against Hull, we had reached safety for another spell amongst the elite and Hull were fighting for their lives in the Stacksomoulah League. Would this prove to be an important issue?

Frankly, right from the start it looked as though the side in red and blue were suffering collective dysfunction. Passes were lamely going to the black shirts, attacks were unthreatening and tactics were disjointed and confusing.

There are issues over the referee, the man we all love to hate, Mark Clattenburg, and the disallowed Yaya Sanogo goal seemed totally unreasonable.

There was also a strong case for a penalty after a Robbie Brady handball but the way the Eagles were playing, the ball would have been lucky to have hit the corner flag from the spot.

There were, of course, issues the other way round as well but the fact must be faced that on the day Hull City were the far superior team and Palace were second best pretty well all the way, apart from some brilliant work by Julian Speroni which kept the score down to a respectable 0-2 result.

As we have come to expect, the vocal support in the Holmesdale and the Arthur Wait was as indefatigable as ever, even in the face of the second home defeat in eight days.

The issue of the "12th man" in the form of spectator support is one that has been widely debated here and elsewhere.

I am sceptical over whether this has any real bearing on a team's performance. The lip service given by players, managers and club directors could well be to keep supporters satisfied as much as anything else.

At a stadium widely acknowledged to be one of the loudest and most difficult to discourage in the league, why then have the Eagles only won five out of 17 games played there so far this season? Only five other clubs in the top tier have a record as meagre as that.

Finally it was heart-warming to hear the tribute given at half-time to HOL stalwart "staffie" who sadly passed away last week. Judging by the strength of the applause coming from all sections of the ground, Holmesdale Online is a widely read and respected venue for Palace supporters and that is gratifying to know.

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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