September 19 2016

Captain Dann in the thick of it here and another goal to his credit against Stoke City

Stoke came to Selhurst after a poor start and a 4-1 victory for Palace rubbed it in even more, reports Jamesey.

On a pleasant autumn Sunday afternoon (Sept 18) with the Sky TV cameras rolling, the Eagles entertained Stoke City.

After a discouraging start and two defeats against West Brom and Tottenham, the CPFC team has started to improve considerably.

A league cup victory against Blackpool was followed by a last gasp draw at home to Bournemouth.

The following weekend there were no Stacksomoulah matches due to World Cup international qualifying fixtures. This usually involves England struggling against obscure eastern Europe countries with gross national incomes of less than Wayne Rooney's hair transplant bill.

The fact that the England manager's job was down to a shortlist of Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce shows how low the national team has sunk.

Fat Sam or Old Flatnose - what a grim choice that is. However when the current manager returns from Russia waving the Jules Rimet trophy I will, of course, run round the Selhurst pitch wearing a dunce's hat before a selected audience.

Still, I mustn't get started on that. Let's get back to more important matters concerning a certain club in SE25.

Our fortunes changed even more pleasantly last week when that rarity of rarities these days was notched up - a 1-2 away win at Middlesbrough.

So things were looking up and a crowd of not far off 24,000 (I couldn't see where the 2000-odd empty seats were) waited with reasonable expectations, barring the away supporters of course.

Those expectations were more than satisfied right from the start when the Eagles positively blitzed the Potters' goal and, hey presto, in the 9th and 11th minutes, the Eagles went two goals up.

As seems to be not all that unusual now, both came from defenders, new boy James Tomkins and who else but Scott Dann.

There was an air of bemused joy in the stadium. After so many defeats and a goal famine last season, to be two ahead by the 11th minute was somewhat of a shock.

The Eagles took their foot of the gas as the first half continued but there was little danger from the Potters apart from the ease with which Marko Arnautovic was giving Joel Ward the run-around.

Nevertheless with the score still at 2-0 when the half-time whistle blew, many supporters would gladly have settled for that as a result, so low has our confidence been of late.

Palace started to come back into the game more after the break and after such a great team performance it is invidious to mention particular players. But Wilfried Zaha, apparently unaffected after the Tottenham overtures, was always a threat. Andros Townsend looked worth every penny of the investment and Scott Dann was his usual rock-like presence.

Then in the 71st minute, James McArthur shot at the Stoke goal and a defender's deflection bamboozled keeper Shay Given and we were three up.

Two men in the dug-outs, Alan Pardew and Mark Hughes, both with silver barnets, white shirts and grey suits, continued to shout and wave their arms about, one in delight and the other in desperation. It's not too hard to guess which was which.

A few minutes later the tireless running of Townsend saw him bang in number four after a nifty counter-attack.

Unfortunately Stoke's Arnautovich scored a consolation goal in time added on and the match ended with a fine victory at 4-1.

Our mega-money man, Christian Benteke, had little to do but when you can score four with two centre backs, a midfielder and a winger, who needs strikers?

Is it just me or does 4-0 always sound much more satisfying than 4-1 for a winner. Anyhow I'm certainly not complaining.

Next, after a midweek league cup outing, CPFC travel north east to Sunderland's Stadium of Light.

After Stoke, the Mackems are having the second most miserable start to the season so let us fervently hope that manager David Moyes continues his career of mediocrity and failure and before then doesn't get the Spanish Archer (El-bow to those of you unfamiliar with the term).

Teams with new managers often up their game and we wouldn't want to see that would we?

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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