I didn’t see the game versus Burnley yesterday, but did see the extended highlights. Palace deserved every bit of that win. The team is playing outstanding football right now, despite an extremely thin bench. Andros Townsend and Jeffrey Schlupp have joined Mama Sakho, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Scott Dann among first team players injured.
This team has only lost very close matches to Spurs, Arsenal and Newcastle (they probably deserved draws in each of those to be honest) since the end of September. Roy Hodgson is becoming a legend.
Another legend in the making is Bakary Sako. He’s not a very good player, but don’t tell him that, because all he does is score goals. He made only his second start of the season, but is Palace’s leading scorer.
But that thin bench is concerning. With Dann and Puncheon done for the season, Cabaye not able to go 90 minutes anymore and Conor Wickham coming back who knows when, the team needs some help pretty much everywhere. And they have been spending money at every window to paper over some of the hideous stretches of play they have had over the past several seasons. At some point, that money either is going to run out, or needs to be saved to add an impact player who can get the team to the next level.
They’re looking at improving GK with a transfer of Vicente Guaita from Getafe, breaking the back and forth between Speroni and Hennessey. They’re also looking to add another striker, interested in Khouma Babacar from Fiorentina, an option I like a bit better for the longer term than Oumar Niasse. They’re also looking at Ibrahim Amadou to fill in at CB, a position that seemed to have a lot of depth before. It’s frustrating to spend money there, but presumably in today’s market you can sell almost anyone for a profit. But I’d much rather see them spend this money on trying to pry one of the excellent players we have on loan - Rueben Loftus-Cheek and Tim Fosu-Mensah would be amazing additions to this team, and by all accounts, both seem happy at Palace (though hard to say whether consistent starting opportunities would outweigh what Chelsea and Man U can offer them).
The bottom of the table is incredibly congested. 10 points separate 9th from 20th position in the table. I don’t think they are out of the relegation woods yet, but I do feel much more confident about Premier League football next year. The team seems very much invested in Roy’s program, but it is also hard to imagine Roy sticking around for 5 more years too.
Maybe it is always one step forward, two back in this league for all but the top 6, but whenever optimism runs high, it seems there is an inevitable reality check. In the meantime, at least we are finally ahead of Brighton.
Arsenal is up next, a team Palace usually has trouble with. Hopefully it will be Arsenal without Alexis Sanchez to help keep this momentum going.