Wednesday 10 February 2010

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.


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