Crystal Palace 2 City 1 – FA Cup 3rd Round Replay
To be honest, I never expected to win this one, which is probably best demonstrated by the fact that I had bought train tickets to Leicester for 24th, forgetting that the next round was on that day! When I heard the team, my worst fears were confirmed. I don’t buy into the ‘now we can concentrate on the league’ argument; surely we should want to win EVERY game – it maintains a winning mentality and I think the players owe it to the fans who spend a lot of money following them.
Pearson had said that he wanted to win the game but I’m not so sure. It emerged later that Davies and Dyer were ill, which is something we can’t help (provided the club and the players are doing everything to minimise their chances of picking up bugs, etc) and I reluctantly accept that resting Fryatt, if he had a reaction from Saturday, was the right thing to do.
What really bothered me, however, was the apparent inability of most of the players to pass the ball to a team-mate! To be honest, it was like last season all over again and just reinforces the attitude of some older fans never to take anything for granted. How can a team brimming with confidence on Saturday, not to say playing with a swagger, become so awful?
This was exemplified by Oakley’s glaring miss towards the end of the game; was this really the same player who scored a sublime goal on Saturday? If he had scored then, there is a chance that we might have clawed it back, but by the time Gradel scored his consolation goal it was way, way too late….
I’m probably in a minority but I desperately want to see us win the FA Cup and it is even more frustrating when – if they had played like we know they can – they could have won. Palace were not convincing and could so easily have been beaten. So another frustrating night following City, but what is more worrying is that if we do get promoted and they play like that on a regular basis, we will be straight back down again.
So, to the actual match. City started brightly but yet again Dickov was disappointing. Frankly, there was no real threat from our strikers. Perhaps one bright spot in an otherwise gloomy night was the performance of Ashley Chambers when he came on late in the game; he looked bright and lively and on that short stint I would prefer him to partner Howard if Fryatt is unavailable.
The injury to Tunchev looked a bad one and we will miss him, although to be fair I thought Morrison had a good match when he came on, he certainly seemed more solid than in previous games. The first Palace goal looked very soft but apparently took a deflection off King, leaving Martin with little chance. The second was not surprising; City were pushing for an equaliser and left themselves a bit exposed at the back.
The stats say it all really; apparently City had only one shot on target (Chambers late on) and that was about it. They had a few corners but none of them posed any threats. Hobbs (on the Mercury website) admitted that they had not been at their best and he wasn’t wrong! The most worrying aspect was the number of stray passes when they have shown how slickly they can move the ball normally and rarely give it away.
Many of the fans stayed behind to applaud the team but I’m afraid I saw nothing to applaud them for. Call me a miserable old so-and-so, but they were very poor and those of us who had travelled to perhaps the worst ground in the country for its location deserved better.
Crystal Palace: Speroni, Butterfield, Lawrence, Hill, Clyne, Derry, Carle, Danns, Moses (Scannell 31), Lee (Kuqi 64), Ifill (Andrew 78). Subs Not Used: Flahavan, Hills, Ertl, Comley.
Goals: Ifill 38, Scannell 55.
Leicester: Martin, Edworthy (Gilbert 76), Tunchev (Morrison 21), Hobbs, Mattock, Oakley, Andy King, Berner, Gradel, Howard, Dickov (Chambers 64). Subs Not Used: Cisak, Adams, Porter, Powell.
Booked: Chambers, Gradel. Goals: Gradel 90.
Att: 6,023 Ref: Steve Tanner (Somerset).
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation