BIG PAT HAS TO HAVE THE CASH
FORGET what you think this result tells you and remember Crystal Palace were coming up against Chelsea.
Resist the temptation to fall into those lazy traps of believing it could be a long, hard season for new man Patrick Vieira simply because his impressive pre-season with the Eagles was derailed at Stamford Bridge.
The scars from the Frank de Boer experience understandably still run deep in the Selhurst Park boardroom.
Four defeats in his first four Premier League games and no goals at the start of the 2017-18 season, saw the Dutchman handed his P45.
The plan to install a style of football akin to stockings and suspenders was quickly thrown overboard in favour of Roy Hodgson’s granny pants and bloomers.
Support
What Vieira needs, however, is support in the transfer market.
Competition for keeper Vicente Guaita – rooted to the spot for Marcos Alonso’s opener and hopeless as Christian Pulisic rammed in the second – would be a good start.
We also can’t really start to judge Vieira’s Palace until Marc Guehi, his £13million signing from Chelsea, starts alongside £15m Joachim Andersen who was absent on this occasion.
For all the justified plaudits for Hodgson’s work last season, Palace’s defence shipped 66 goals – the most since they returned to the top flight eight years ago.
In pre-season, Palace were beaten just once in their six games, winning four others and conceding in only three of them.
But even that was never going to be enough to keep out a
hungry Chelsea forward line, fresh from winning the Champions League and playing for their places following the arrival of £97.5m Romelu Lukaku.
In midfield, new recruit Michael Olise is out with a lower back problem while Conor Gallagher was ineligible to face his parent club.
It meant Vieira was forced to start with Jairo Riedewald, James Mcarthur and Jeffrey Schlupp in the centre of the park. Come on.
After an initial resistance of 20 or so minutes, Chelsea ran rings around them. Schlupp didn’t last the match and was replaced by Christian Benteke after around an hour.
Palace need more legs, more quality and more investment rather than more panic after this initial, fully expected, defeat.
The board needs to fund a link man between defence and attack.
Palace need to be in the market for more firepower up front – how can it be the case
that Wilfred Zaha is forced to lead the line for yet another season in the Premier League?
Palace host their good friends and neighbours Brentford next weekend before travelling to West Ham after their Carabao Cup second-round match at Watford.
All three fixtures will give us a chance to make a more considered assessment of the Eagles against more comparable opposition.
Suckered
But don’t get suckered into thinking this comprehensive defeat here is the end of the world for Palace or Vieira this early. It really isn’t.
Palace’s co-chairman Steve Parish deserves credit for trying to develop a more sustainable model for the club after an unprecedented eight seasons in the Premier League.
If they really do want a younger, more vibrant side to grow in confidence and belief then now is the time for the fans – and the club – to back big Pat.