How full is the glass? The Crystal Palace conundrum

[RB@CrystalPalace]

Eagle Eye Report
A Crystal clear look on all things Palace

Resilient and improving? Or in danger of the drop?

We are at the official halfway stage of the FFO season, with Round 19 in the books and the European group stages complete. Crystal Palace sit in 14th position in the Premier League, with quarter-finals awaiting them in both the FA Cup and the Dave Phillips Trophy in the second half of the season, but fans are divided about where the club is headed, both in this season and in the long run. Two fans' perspectives follow, both on contrasting sides, but who is right? Only time will tell...

The negative Nigel

Five wins in nineteen league games. It sounds bad enough when you put it like that, but then you take out where we won two of the first three and it's then three league wins in sixteen games. We're in exactly the same place as we finished last season, and only seven points clear of relegation. When you consider we gave points to a load of the sides below us in the first half of the season, it doesn't bode well moving forward.

Even in the games we have won, we rarely look convincing. I could probably count on one hand the number of times we've even shaded the match stats, let alone dominated an opposition. We're often overrun in midfield, and the one area of the pitch we seem to be doing what we're supposed to, we go and splurge an enormous amount of money on a player who hasn't managed to score in either of his first two games. Why couldn't we just keep going with Adama Traore? The bloke has 13 goals for us, the same as Martinez has managed, but we didn't have to chuck nearly £95m at him.

We don't have a standout in the important metrics. Tsimikas has the 26th most tackles in the league and is our best. De Paul has the 19th most key passes as our best. We don't have another player inside the top 50, but the big solution there is to go and sign Georginio Rutter on bloody loan from a second tier European side. There's no long term strategy, I feel like Brunton is chancing himself for a cup success and hoping to get lucky in a bunched up league table to fluke a top half finish. Don't get me wrong - the cup progression is great, but even if we beat Wrexham, there's no chances we beat any two of the other teams consecutively. And no disrespect to the DPT, but you've seen the team selections, it isn't serious for Palace, so we shouldn't judge that as a success measure as fans.

I'd like to be proved wrong, but unless something drastic happens, I think we struggle second half of the season.


The positive Paul

Five defeats in nineteen league games. When you remember back to last season where we lost sixteen, that level of resilience in the side is so important for us as supporters. Granted it would be nice to win a few more, but we didn't lose to United, Chelsea, City, Arsenal, Tottenham, and given the difference in quality between us and those rosters I think it speaks volumes of how the group is gelling with Brunton in charge.

The Martinez signing is massive. The bonanza was a mess for us, and then Lee Clark resigning, honestly I feared the worst for us. For us then in half a season to have one of the best strikers in world football playing at Selhurst Park is great, and something which should get people flooding into the ground. Adama's been great as well, and I hope we see him and Lautaro paired together at some point and move away from the one up front system. I've been really impressed with Eze and de Paul too, and de Paul taking on the captaincy should only see us get more and more out of him.

The cup runs are great for the club too. We haven't gone out and smashed anyone in the FA Cup, but we put in a controlled performance against Birmingham and then were really clinical against Blackburn. Wrexham is going to be a tough game when it comes around, but we're a win away from a semi-final, and you never know how things might go for you when you get that far. With the pressure on as well, it was terrific to see the boys to get the result we needed in the DPT to progress, and now a two legged quarter final with Celtic for more gate receipts and minutes. There's some great teams left, but we are getting close to that label too.

14th doesn't sound particularly inspiring when you look at the league table, but considering we ended the first half with United, Chelsea and City and only lost one of those games, we're definitely proving a side which is hard to beat. We have a run now where we play more teams in the bottom half than the top, so if we can get even five, six, maybe even seven wins, with the league table as close as it is, we could really get among the CL spots. We've got work to do to ensure we don't slip backwards into the relegation mire, but my gut is telling me that we might see something special by the end of the season.

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