TWar

The attack options on our bench, it would have been less of a punch and more of a gentle push.

Bench was dire, wasn't much we could do which didn't result in massively weakening the 11 on the pitch. We had to do that anyway when three players were absolutely blowing but we don't have as many options with no Armstrong, other Armstrong, Adams, Stephens, and with Diallo and Djenepo is very poor form.

Livra was good for me, couple of great challenges on Zaha, kept him very quiet other than a goal which he was not to blame for at all. Passed out well from the back, his running relieved pressure. Will say his crossing needs work though.

Oh, misread it, thought you ment Bednarek. These threads with a lot of posts it's hard to track which convos are with which. My bad!

That and they just dropped like £80m over the summer, they just had massive reinvestment.

Prem players are pricey. He is pretty cheap as starting CBs go, which he was when he signed his deal. We are in a spot where we will really struggle to compete in this league until we get financial injection in a couple of years imo.

Diallo was dreadful on the weekend, not sure I'd be wild about him coming on, and Perraud is good but our fullbacks were doing ok imo. I might have brought on Elyounoussi for Smallbone personally, but thats the only different change I would have made.

I think palace are a pretty good side atm. A point at palace isn't the worst result. We should be beating Newcastle and Norwich from that list but Brighton and Palace's squads are atleast on par with us, and with our injuries I think Palace had better players than us today. Pretty telling they could bring on Benteke who has 4 goals this season and Olise and we had to settle for Walcott and Long, two players who should be in the championship as rotation options.

Absolutely must win. Hopefully one of Adams and Armstrong is back and can play next to Broja. Back to a 4222 with Tella and Redmond behind the forwards and I think we have a decent chance to score some goals. I'd drop Lyanco out for Stephens as I think he was pretty rash today, was sloppy positionally, and he had this annoying habit of waiting until the striker was basically on him before making a pass then shanking it to palace. Aside from that, same as today.

Great goal tonight and another very nice run. Faded a little as the game went on and probably would have been subbed a little earlier if we had a better bench. That was likely due to the injury he picked up on the weekend though

I think we are better when our players are fresh and fit as our press is a huge source of chances and goals and we just can't hold it up. Ideally we need to press like mad to get a lead and then transition to more possession style football with quick attackers to catch the other team on the break as holes open up with the other team trying to get back into it. The issue is, our defence isn't good enough to hold a lead and our attacking mids aren't good enough to create chances on the counter against a stretched side, also our forwards aren't finishing at all well when they do.

I'm happy to keep starting him personally. I think KWP has been pretty decent on the LB role (better than Perraud imo) so I think our current set up is probably the best. Perraud was pretty suspect defensively I thought too, although undoubtedly a better crosser than Tino.

I think we just struggle to score as our attacking mids don't make much and our strikers haven't been overly clinical. Both of those would be nice to solve, Redmond and Tella at AM is working OK imo and Broja's finishing has been decent, but I don't think that's a tactical thing. More lack of individual quality. I think Armstrong and Adams will click and bang a bunch of goals at some point, maybe next season.

I don't think he's too bad in defence. I think often people blame him when we give the ball away cheaply in midfield and he is high up and has to get back, which is pretty unfair for me. I can't remember too many goals I'd consider "his fault" this season. His ability to control and play the ball under pressure is essential though, he's basically the only member of our back 7 (including the GK) who I trust to play a ball under pressure other than JWP (and even he has slip ups)

I doubt "don't score a second goal" is a strategy we employ

I also will say, it's a shame the injuries hit now. Their back 4 were stretched and if we had Adams, Stu, and Arma fit as well as Tella and Broja we would have had better options on the bench and could have changed things up at 60 mins and really hurt them. As was, we had to use Long, Walcott, and Djenepo who are all shite and so we left subs late as we could to keep our better players on the pitch till they were truly knackered. Then after they left we lost all threat whatsoever.

I think the pass was poor, Romeu could have been proactive to come to the ball, Willy shouldn't be done at the near post but I think Lyanco not showing him outside was the biggest crime. Also, as I said in the last comment, the ref had a part to play too as I think Hughes went through Romeu

I think Salisu and Willy also share some of the blame tbh. Also, I think a lot of the time the challenge is given as a foul, he went through the back of Romeu to get there imo.

CB has to show Zaha outside, as the commentators pointed out. You can't let the forward cut inside there as a right footer

First goal was on him too imo.

They looked knackered. Both played 3 days ago, one went down with a muscle injury in the last game.

Good point. Feel like in years gone by we might have nicked it but we can't seem to do that anymore. A draw was a fair result imo.

I disagree. I think Livramento has been very good.

Wonder if this is a return to the 4141 we saw earlier in the season. Willy Tino Lyanco Salisu KWP Romeu Tella JWP Smallbone Redmond Broja I think Broja actually operates best as a lone striker rather than a two and the decision to play Smallbone over one of our 10s like Elyounoussi or Djenepo may be because of this.

With the money we have spent, survival. Then longer term, to work on a shoestring developing players, selling them as soon as they get good, and then rebuilding with the cheap replacements the club give him. Rinse and repeat, keep making money for the owners whilst dodging the drop. We have spent much less than our contemporaries since he arrived and yet his win % is double that of the guys that proceeded him, he's paid for that. He's paid to keep us up with the money we spend for him. At the moment he's doing it. Fans want him to be cracking top half/europe but he can only do so much with the cash we put down, and he's doing pretty well all things considered, if you were to look at our spending.