Shit headline, but I’ve already exhausted Dirty Old Town/Team/Man.
I’ll be honest, I didn’t really follow our game at Salford yesterday, so on the surface of it a 0-0 draw isn’t the best result.
It’s not the worst either, of course, and at least we’re not Sutton this morning.
By the sound of it, we seemed to do everything but score. AAH could have had a hat-trick, and perhaps should have done.
All in all, it’s one of those ones that you just have to accept happens from time to time.
We’re finding the net at home, and a point on the road is always a good thing. We would have lost this last season, probably in the 98th minute too.
So as we head back down south** with our shoulders shrugged, it’s easy to forget this isn’t our last game before Xmas.
** – sure others will know, but would we have had the squad’s Xmas party up in Manchester?
If so, it wouldn’t just be our shoulders that are in a different shape to normal.
Playing at Crawley doesn’t appeal at the best of times, let alone on the Friday night before Santa empties his sack.
But we’ve sold out our increased allocation, and hopes will be high for that one.
And understandably so. Our home form is what we’ve dreamed of for some time, and we managed to stop the rot away yesterday.
We all know January could destroy things, so we’re understandably not getting carried away, but there’s still four games left before the window opens.
I think we might be in that unusual situation that there’s not really much else to say about us at the moment.
We didn’t go up to Moor Lane with any sort of fear, and it’s a very good sign that we consider yesterday two points dropped.
Right now, you don’t have to worry about our team. If we win, great. If we draw, it can be frustrating but it’s a good frustration.
IYSWIM.
If we lose at the moment, we know we have enough within us not to freefall, and to knuckle down again.
As just said though, that may not necessarily be the case by the time February arrives, so we’re enjoying it while we’re still allowed to.
Because it’s coming up to Xmas, you can fully expect a lot of things to shut down.
All right, there’s odd bits of news. The thumbsuckers impressed in beating Blackburn in the FAYC, and one hopes we can get past the next round for some proper good stuff.
Vibes of that run we had beating Newcastle at SJP before giving Chelski a scare?
There are some familiar comments about buying tickets for Ipswich, although lest we forgot how it’s actually got better.
I suppose the big news right now is our new MD, James Woodroof.
Well, he’s not going to be our new MD until March, as he’s obviously got to see out his notice as Palace’s chief comms and marketing officer.
For some reason, trying to find any who’s-who on Palace’s website is quite difficult, so we can only be guided by what our OS says.
But he’s the kind of appointment we do need. The club does seem to underutilise Plough Lane, which is frustrating as there’s plenty we can do.
Unlike some others, I don’t believe the third tier on the west stand makes it a white elephant. If anything, it was the club future-proofing itself at the time it was the most cost-effective to do it.
It’s just that the organisation of AFCW wasn’t (isn’t?) good enough to utilise it properly.
It won’t change the fact that football finances generally dictate we’ll have to go to any potential 50%+1 ownership model at some point, but it gives us a chance to get that properly right.
All in all though, we could do with some competence off the field too. And with luck Woodroof will provide that.
I’m not bothered if he sees us as a stepping stone to further his career. We lose people at the top quite regularly for various reasons anyway.
From about 2018 we’ve had Erik Samuelson, Joe Palmer, Danny Macklin and whoever stood in when there was a vacancy as the top job. That’s a lot of turnover in five years.
He’ll be reporting to the PLC Board (and is it me or is the “Meet the PLC” article on the OS no coincidence?) which is what it should be.
And the vibe is, he’s a good appointment. You don’t get to be involved at Palace, Liverpool and the ECB if you haven’t got something about you.
I just wonder what he’ll think when he has to deal with some of our high-maintenance fans for the first time though…