Phlegm Genius on football As above so Below….

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 They used to say what a difference a day makes but it’s more like what a difference a season makes at Crystal Palace. Their first trophy ever in the FA Cup then winning the Charity shield (a big deal if you’ve never won anything or just one trophy) to getting dumped out of said competition by a non-league side, losing your two best players and your manager announcing he’s off soon too. And let's be honest they’ve played like they know he’s leaving. Mateta was never the most prolific but he’ struggled this season and although they’re in no danger of going down it juts seems metaphorically someone let all the air out of the room. 

It was meant to be a celebration of a season almost a free hit, they were in Europe they’d had won silverware at the start albeit a charity match but they beat the Champions. You could have been forgiven for not necessarily tearing up trees with Eze leaving at the start of the season but no one expected terminal decline. And yes even with Guehi going and Glasser set to leave I still think they can stay in the league but it feels already like they don’t believe it. 

It reminds a bit of Blackburn after they won the league and then Shearer and Daglish departed shortly after winning the league; almost as if there is air resignation that last season is good as it’s ever going to get. And I’m not a Palace fan but it makes me sad. After the Leicester story of 2016 it felt as though small teams were never gonna win big again. I know they won the FA Cup later on as did Palace but last season felt on par with that. I know it’s not but it felt like it. And it probably did for Palace as well being their first ever trophy. And I hyped the charity shield because that probably felt like Leiceter’s FA Cup win to them as well. That’s a lot of hypothesizing but for a club that was in administration 16 years ago and before that 27 years ago any silverware is a big deal, especially the first in their history. You only have to go bac to last season and the North East to see what it means to a club who  have been starved of silverware to win any trophy. 

To be fair that’s what it should mean as well. There were some who poked fun at the scale of Newcastle's celebrations but in a world where the so-called big Six are serial winners of domestic cups these celebrations are called for. I think more clubs should be going for the domestic cups, any cups they can get. That’s why I didn;t quite understand the commotion from both Palace and Forest about going into the Europa Conference league. I get there's more of a financial incentive and obviously a ticket into the Champions League for the winner but lets hold on a minute. There’s such a thing as running before you can walk and I think with careful squad management both squads had a good chance of winning the conference. They’lll argue the same for the Europa I guess but although the standard has lowered it’s a tougher ask for your for the first time back in Europe in decades. Palace were in the Intertoto Cup 27 years ago  and Forest it was 30 years ago. We all know European football is a learning curve especially for British teams. As good as Man City were it wasn't until Pellegrini came that they got to a Semi-final, It took prime Chelsea five years to get to a Champions League final. It’s not as simple as winning because you're a team that’s arguably the best in Europe. After all, Europa still has sides with a lot of European heritage in it even if the overall quality has dropped. If I’m Forest or Palace I’d go into the Conference league and try and win it. Especially if I’m Palace as I’m on a roll already having won their first ever trophy. Similarly with Forrest I wonder how much the haggling over which competition they were going to play in played into how their seasons have panned out as that kind of administrative stress is not an ideal preparation for the start of a season.

I do get the argument that money wise (is the conference a financial drain overall for clubs?) and in terms of player recruitment the higher ranked competition is an easier sell. But so is confidence and a winning mentality. I feel like Palace forgot to sell the dream to themselves.

 

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