Preston (LC2); Palace Still Under Siege as Cup Magic Fails to Bring any Relief!

2012 is not proving fun on the road for Palace. Even our old friend the League Cup in its new guise as the Capital One Cup failed to offer a spark and indeed deserted Palace on Tuesday night. The competition responsible for so many good nights last time around, giving Dougie the opportunity to blood youngsters, this year served up a painful dose of reality as for the second time in a week, this time in Preston Palace were hammered 4 – 1.

Goals from Nicky Wroe (2), Alpo Sodje and Jefferey Monakana put Palace to the sword with Aaron Wilbraham responding for Palace at 2 – 0 down with his first goal for the club, not enough to prevent a 4 – 1 humiliation. A second defensive capitulation in a week left Palace embarrassed to lower league opposition and with plenty of food for thought. With time in the transfer window rapidly running out, the trip to the Valley to play Charlton in a televised match on 14^th September is flashing like a warning beacon for all to see with the very futures of Dougie Freedman and Lennie Lawrence at the football club coming into sharp focus especially off the back of a poor performance or another capitulation.

My own view however is one should at least give Dougie Freedman time to work with the squad between now and January and build on a togetherness and team spirit that served us so well last season. Very little now can be done to change the makeup of the squad. It is Dougie’s squad and nothing can be gained in the short term from making a change and stopping Freedman from working with the team. I just wish something could be done the fitness and conditioning of the team.

Being positive Palace were competitive at Middlesbrough in the league last Saturday and the return of Jonny Williams to the first team at Preston must have been the bright spot of the night to those Eagles fans that travelled (which I confess this time to not actually being amongst) and can only be a good thing. Three of the next four matches are at home and will have the Selhurst crowd behind the team so despite not being easy games the team can pick up points and move up the table. If we can use the remainder of the transfer window to find a striker then hopefully we as supporters can lift the mood on the pitch to pull through the difficult challenges ahead by evoking the spirit of 2010 just in time for the visit of Sheffield Wednesday.