Villa Shmilla

There hasn’t been a Power To The Palace article for a while and we can only apologise- the last two league games dulled any inspirational high that the Villa game injected and thus, no word flurry has come to pass until now- and even this has taken longer than it should. It seems like a month ago that we nearly stole the FA Cup headlines with another “we’re proud of you” performance. In reality, it’s only just been a week.
Two poor losses since Valentines Day, still no real takeover speculation and now QPR’s ‘throw enough balls at enough targets’ method of manger selection, has inevitably chosen Warnock as it’s next temp.

All in all, the sad reality is, I couldn't give a toss about the Villa game anymore... win, lose or draw (after 90 minutes)

Don’t get me wrong- the 1st 'leg' was a fantastic occasion all round- a great display from the players, management team and fans alike. It will go down in my memory as one of the best days at Selhurst for a fair while.
However, the moment it went to a replay, we were all saying things like: "oh well, we were unlucky, but at least it's more TV money!" Well, once again, the little fish are being lightly simmered, whilst the bigger ones are being fried- ITV1 are understandably showing Chelsea’s Champions League match, but can’t find room on their 3 other useless channels to show our replay... it’s not like we need the money or anything, so a live stream on the FA’s website will have to do- which I’m sure will run really smoothly…. It is the website of the FA after all.

Should we defy the odds, and beat a team that just smashed Burnley 5-2, what can we expect as subsequent reward in the 6th round?
An away game at either one of the best championship sides, or one of the current form teams who are on a bit of a roll, including a 3-1 win at our place.
It’s highly unlikely to be shown on television, but very likely to sap more energy out of an already, tired, small squad. Even worse, it could go to a replay and give us another mid-week fixture. Yeeeees, i know that may get televised and give us more gate receipts yadda yadda, but the fact is this: we are knackered and playing too many fixtures. Championship survival is priority #1, not fairytale cup stories. It hurts to say it, but it’s true.
What with snow, FA cup exploits and a demoralizing 10-point deduction, our fixture list has become the exact thing that a team in a relegation battle doesn’t need. And believe me, the loss to Coventry does mean we are in a relegation battle.
Swansea, Reading and Coventry all at home and 0 points out of 9 is not good enough. But what makes it frustrating is that there’s nobody to point the finger at! I wouldn’t dare start to criticize playing/management staff because they are busting a gut, twice weekly! Sadly, you can’t boo, jeer or sack circumstances- they just exist.

Warnock is clearly feeling the squeeze, and the players are clearly shagged, and the only takeover talk, is paper talk.

The week ahead is going to be massive.

PTTP

The return of Sheki, and a physio who was hefty!

Well boyos… where to begin?

Let's start with the pre-Swansea match factors.

-A very lucky, hard-fought win at Scunny.
-A 5th round glamour tie this coming weekend.
-An already depleted squad.
-2 more absent defenders.
-Shekfi Kuqi.

Were we ever going to win this game?

On paper, it looked tough; from the stands, it looked much tougher.
With the heat from a pre-match ‘Tasty Jerk’ dinner still stinging the lips, we sat and began to slowly freeze. By the time the chilli burn had subsided, it was clear that Palace were unlikely to score- even if we played all night (god forbid, it was ferr-reeeizng).
The boys looked absolutely shattered, and who can blame them? The amount of effort that’s gone into our performances since administration has been almost super human and this was bound to have an effect at some point. Call it sod’s law then, that the next opponents were a team that like to play slick football on the deck and arguably, are the best footballing side in the division bar Newcastle.
Swansea looked fresh and confident, we looked fucked and distracted! Throw that in with the hell-bent battering ram that is Kuqi and one of the oddest refereeing performances I’ve ever witnessed- the 1-0 loss wasn’t that bad. Our second half effort was much much better and we had a couple of near chances. Calvin Andrew looked lively and I wouldn’t mind seeing him and Lee upfront against Villa. The fact remains though- Swansea deserved the points- and I want to make that clear so the following rant doesn’t fall into the ‘sour grapes’ category.

Warnock was quoted in the week as saying, “Swansea don’t score a lot of goals, but they don’t concede many either” And how right he was! With the amount of time they wasted- it was surprising there was time for ANYBODY to score a goal.
Their players going down and staying down whilst Palace were in posession, only to magically arise if they won the ball back! Did the referee know that he’s only obliged to stop play if it’s a head injury? Didn’t look that way, as on a few occasions, he was happy to stop play for seemingly innocuous/non-existant ‘injuries’! And in other instances, Swansea would happily play on, with their man down, but the moment we won the ball, the whistle would go- not for a foul, he wasn't stopping play after giving advantage- he was just blowing for the injury/treatment. Like I say, an odd refereeing performance.

Then there was Swansea’s revolutionary corner tactics. 21st Century football at its’ greatest!
A corner would be given- a Swansea player would then pigeon step in slow-motion over to the corner flag with the ball (“come on!”), only then to wait whilst a second player made his way over in similar fashion (“come oooon!”)… to then take a fair while to decide who was going to take the kick (“FUCKING COME OOOOON!”). And even after all that, it wasn’t even a mid-90’s, two-man Chelsea-classic short corner that we all expected from their intricate (slow) positioning of players, it was just a regular cross into the box!!!
No need for the slow motion, no need for the second man! It’s time wasting, it’s a yellow card offence and it happened 4 or 5 times. Like I say, a really odd refereeing performance.
There was also a couple of classic “if that happened outside the box, it would be a free kick” NON-penalty decisions, but relying on a spot-kicks being awarded, says everything we need to know about the match.

We can’t be too down about it, it just wasn’t our night and the players/staff weren’t to blame. Our performance was similar to going to work the morning after a midweek Xmas party- you’ve had a great time, but at some point, you’re going to crash and burn…

…but at least you didn’t snog the fat physio under the mistletoe the night before.
(Should she really be in charge of the players' physical condition)



PTTP.

Daniel Day Lewis DOESN'T dance with Wolves, Kevin Costner DOES... but Danny Butterfield waltzes around them!

Well… where to begin? I considered delaying the writing of this article by 24 hours, purely because I’m not too sure if everything I’ve seen over the past week or so has been real or not.
Roughly this time last week, administration greeted the team like a taxi-driver with a bad news name-card at Newcastle Airport, Moses was forbidden to play and a freak own goal was just the kick in the nuts (elbow in the breast for all you female readers) that we didn’t deserve. All aboard the doom bus- let the exodus begin!
Fast forward 6 days and we’ve “only” lost Moses, Danns and Clyne opted well and truly IN for ‘Operation Administration’, we’ve seen the team put in two outstanding performances, booked a much needed 5th Round tie and unleashed the goal machine that is Danny Butterfield! And by the looks of it, the team spirit has never been better. Stemming from Warnock, and immersing players and fans alike.
The 10-point deduction is but a mere scratch on this weeks patch-up paint job.

The Peterborough game suddenly became a great deal more significant. A game that we, as play-off hopefuls, expected to win suddenly turned into a relegation 6 pointer. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one whose gut was alternating between floppy nerve-churning somersaults and bonafide tension right up until 3pm Saturday.
Well, one thing’s for sure- the players certainly didn’t feel the same. They played with a calm, assured patience, which ultimately saw us beat the Posh comfortably. Butterfield up front deserved a goal or two (a warning of things to come) and Danns finished two classy efforts.
A great advert for all of our squad just after entering administration, but before the end of January- uh-oh. That doom bus was still waiting to depart after all. However…

In a move that was about as surprising as another John Terry scandal- Victor Moses left the club for the promised land of the Premier League with Wigan signing him up on a 3 and half-year deal, for an undisclosed fee. The amount doing the rounds on the various messageboards seems to be £2.5million, however, seeing as it’s announced as ‘undisclosed’ it may have been a fraction more than that, or even included a cheeky little sell on percentage.
As much as we need cash now, a part of me prefers the latter option. Wigan may not have been the lofty heights that we hoped Victor would leave us for, but based on their recent history of buying for little, selling for loads (Baines, Chimbonda, Palacios, Valencia,) even a 10% sell-on clause could see us earn another £1million - £1.5mill depending on his progress. If his brilliance continues to emerge in the way that we’ve witnessed over the past few months, expect the bigger fish in the Premier League and maybe even the Spanish giants to do what they should’ve done this January, but for what will be a significantly greater amount.
All the best to Vic- with the world at his feet, don’t be surprised if he does an overhead kick with it.


Two players that didn’t depart, much against the administrators' wishes, were Nathaniel Clyne and Neil Danns, who I shall now both refer to in full name- out of sheer, utter respect.
Both had opportunities to jump ship, not that I hold anything against VicMo or Jose Fonte for doing so, far from it! But after Neil Danns’ recent form and his fantastic brace at the weekend, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one that thought he wouldn’t be here come Feb 1st. As it stands, he turned down the Saints and stayed put. Whose to say he would’ve done the same were it another Championship club, but that’s ultimately irrelevant! Neil Danns is a Crystal Palace player, and what’s even better; you can tell he wants to be a Crystal Palace player.

The same applies to Nathaniel ‘more refreshing than a KFC lemon wipe’ Clyne.
I remember seeing an interview with him after a televised Southampton match (08/09), which was both one of his and Warnock’s early matches. He’d had a blinder all game, set up a great Kuqi goal and shown an abundance of confidence. Yet when put between the interview camera and advertising backdrop, he came across as one of the quietest, withdrawn and humblest of people, let alone professional footballers, I’d ever seen. Head down, barely looking at the interviewer and softly spoken, you’d have been forgiven for thinking he was a guilty schoolboy being told off for something!
Natahniel Clyne has never given us any Bostock-esque “My dream is to be here” hot air so if he had gone on deadline day, yes we would have been sad, but in no way let down! But as Warnock pointed out that same night against Southampton, Nathaniel Clyne speaks very few words- he’s a man of actions. His latest actions culminating in a preference to beat Wolves rather than speak to them, and helping us earn the cash that we would’ve got for selling him anyway. Calculated risk 1- Administration 0 .



I’m going to try and talk about last night as briefly as possible. a] because it pretty much spoke for itself and b] I might cry (again!) As mentioned on the Twitter, I was confident of a win. But a comprehensive victory, via a Danny Butterfield hat-trick? I’d never have guessed that and still find it difficult to believe. Although on Sky Sports News today, they keep showing Paul Merson’s in-studio reaction to the second and third going in. If a straight-laced, sobre Mers is getting excited about it, then it must have happened right?!

One departure, two (great) victories, three goals for Butts, four points from safety and a 5th round tie. Just a standard week at Selhurst Park eh?

Now, onwards to Scunthorpe.

PTTP

P.S- shame on those that read this and didn't spot the intentional (ahem) error in the original title ;)