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Fuck, guys! So, we've got a bunch of guests on today, so we've got Andy. Let's just work, so it was just you, a bit, bit weird, wouldn't it? Yeah, be the monocast, wouldn't it, essentially? We've got Andy, hello, we've got Mike, hello, we've got Ben, hello, who is also Doc Brown, I guess you might want to know that, and we've got me. We should give a special shout out to Mike early on for hosting this pod with some of the crunchiest snacks known to broadcasting. This is true, we need to make sure not to eat too many of those as you're in the pod as well. This is a nacho. I've all got fresh carrot sticks. No perfect, perfect for your tuition and pleasure. And I think Steve Parrish can know the pod. Don Brown, there you go. So, this podcast is brought to you by J.C. Innovation and Strategy, the Global Research and Brand Consultancy from South London. Visit jc-is.com, as well as vector printing, which is www.vector.co.uk, and that's vector with her. Okay, that's all your printing embroidery needs. Yeah, for all your printing embroidery needs. I feel like our guests aren't really picking it up enough here. I've got a lot of embroidery needs, so I should really... - I'll take that down. - They're the ones to go to. What about consulting? Well, on embroidery. No, I feel like I know enough. I'm not able to do it myself, so I don't need any consulting. I know what I want. I just need an expert to bring it to home. Right, anyway, onto the football. So, we played Arsenal at the weekend, 2-1 defeat for Palace. It's always 2-1, isn't it? It is pretty much against Arsenal, isn't it? I mean, it was last season at home, wasn't it? - And away at 3-1. - And away at 3-1. Right corner from here. Pretty standard. Yeah, Mike actually lives in Arsenal, essentially. We could flub on the centre circle from where we're set, frankly. I've tried already, it's too far for that, just a little bit too far. So, yeah, the defeat was a bit disappointing, but I think the performance was pretty decent. What do you think, Andy? I don't know, I thought Pardee got it really wrong, to be honest, with his role in all areas. Well, not in all areas, I mean, he picked a goalkeeper, which is always a plus. And he made sure that people were jolly in the right position. So, I mean, that was also a plus. I thought he, you know, it was crying out for me, for someone to sit just from front of their defence, and do what you'd expect to generate to do. And you saw how well that worked for West Ham, the week before, when the young man resocks was more or less, just sat in that sort of pocket of space, right in front of the centre backs, and just cleared up all day. And we didn't really try to tell that approach. Pardee clearly decided that he was going to try to out-arse no arsenal. I think there's a tricky one. It's funny you just say that, because that's the only sort of majorly negative thing I took from yesterday, was that exact thing, not having an enforcer there, and then every cutaway seeing our enforcers out on the bench. But from a sort of, I don't know, gets a slightly philosophical point of view, if you've just paid 10 million for, like, you know, your club record strike, or a huge boost to the club and the fans and everybody, you just can't really, you can't bench him or play him out of position, can you? And that's a slightly tricky situation that we've never really been in for. I've never seen us have a strong bench before, you know. And having so many central midfielders, like there's so many central midfielders in that squad, and they're all like, even when, you know, you try to shoot much into the team later in the game, and you've got, as you say, sort of jeddonack sitting on the bench, ledly not even making the bench recently. And it just seems that something might have to give there in the transfer market before the end of the month, because those players are going to get a little bit annoyed all the thought. Yeah. Do you think that Pardee might have been looking at it from a perspective of the fact that Palace haven't really had a great deal of success at home over the last season, essentially, and that maybe taking it to Arsenal might have actually surprised him a little bit, maybe put them on the back foot? I think that's exactly what he, that was his intention. Clearly what he's gone for, yeah. And he said it pretty much, right, or in the days leading up to it, we were going to go toe to toe with Arsenal, and people weren't quite sure what that meant, and then he saw the line up. And I confess, I have to, I thought this could be trouble. And I think we started well, it was in literally the first couple of minutes, and then from then on, from that breakaway, where, which ended up in MacArthur clearing off the line, it was just Arsenal. And when they scored, you thought we're in big trouble here. But then you never know, if you pick, if you pick jeddonack, or my favourite, ledly, perhaps we sit back, we let them have too much of the initiative. And we might never have, we might never score that equaliser, we might never have gotten to the game. So it's very hard to know, but I think it seems like the consensus is, we probably were a little gung-ho given all the attacking talent Arsenal have gotten that pitch, and how good they are on the break. I thought on another day it could have been probably three or four kneel to Arsenal after about 25 minutes. They were tearing through us at will, and it was just as well, they weren't finishing brilliantly yesterday. Our sort of default position last year was to go one kneel down, wasn't it? And it seems to sort of focus our minds, and then we're just cracking away, like going at teams. And I think if there's anything to take Solis in yesterday, from the way the football world is that people just love us now. Even Arsenal fans were just like, 'Oh, the pallets, I can't believe you...' They're such natural snobs, you know. They're like, 'I can't believe you took the game to us', you know? I was thinking, 'What's happening last week?' You guys are still in bed, you know? But Pajid did say that, didn't he? Said he'd watched West Ham, and he thought there's chinks in the armour here. And we all know there are, and I think overall it's quite a nervy performance from Arsenal, that we possibly could have exploited a little bit more, but as the feats go, this is probably the one in the last couple of years that has hurt me the least. I mean, I don't feel that there's a massive amount to worry about at the moment, which is worrying from the point of time. You also have to bear in mind, and I think it's probably one of the biggest talking points of the game, was that Francis Cockaland should have possibly been sent off. I mean, from looking at it... Possibly. It should have been sent off to me. Bear in mind, this is... So Arsene Vanger after the match said that the first yellow card shouldn't have been a yellow card. Which, so if we give him the benefit of doubt in that case, then the second yellow... The second incident that should have been a yellow would have then been followed by the third incident, which would have ultimately led to a red card again. So no matter what the argument is against Cockaland, you know, against... For Lee Mason, in favour of what Lee Mason did, clearly there was an issue there. What do you think? Well, I mean, first off, it was a definite sending off, and Vanger is so full of shit. Straight away, it's like, yeah, the first one wasn't a yellow. Definitely wasn't a yellow. You can see it wasn't a yellow. What about the second one? Well, it'd have to see it again. Oh, suddenly he didn't see that one. He didn't see the third one. But, no, I think it was one of those situations where Mason was feeling pressured. This happens a lot to refs. They feel pressured. There's a lot of people in there is different players from both sides, and they feel like they need to take control. And his way of doing that, after he realised straight away that he'd already booked Cockaland, didn't want to ruin the game, that's blatantly decision he made, right? After that, Palace player is in his ear, and he just thought, let me take control, and he booked the next foul. It was one of those little series of plays where the ref had slightly lost control and was trying to regain control. You see it all the time. It was unprofessional. There were two things that really added in the tell to injury for me. The first thing was the fact that Vanger's... Well, I think you've said it as well as anyone can. He took him off straightaway afterwards, and if that wasn't a tacit admission, you'd pick out it was true. It was true, yeah. He should have already had a red card. Then I don't know what it is. And then the second thing is the fact that, by all of a get on, everyone says that they saw effectively per motorcycle acting as a messenger from Mason going over to Fenga, saying, "If you don't take him off, I'm going to send him off." Which, obviously, there's a lot of supposition there. We don't know whether that's actually what he said to Murtisack. But it's all very convenient. And if that is the case, then it's... You know, he's let himself down as a referee, frankly. It's, yeah, that's... In a pre-season friendly, you don't understand that. Yeah. But in the heat of Premier League Battle, where the... There's a professional ref member who... It's not like 20 years ago where they're telling up on a Sunday, and on top of the normal day job pressure, they've suddenly got 50,000... Well, 26,500 fans screaming their ear. It's, I think you call it right, it's downright unprofessional. Yeah, especially if you look at the opening game for Chelsea this season, where Katua was immediately red-carded. I mean, that ref, I can't remember which ref it was, but he didn't think twice. He was just like, "This is a situation, playing goals." It's my callover again, I think. It might have been my callover, and he just sent him off. No second thoughts about... Actually, this might be in the game. Actually, this is a really big team, TV, blah, blah, blah. You know, he just did the thing that is in his head to do as a professional ref, and Mason didn't do that. Mason actually stopped and thought, "Ooh, he's already been booked." Yeah, you have to. No, that's not a conversation. You have to not bear in mind. I mean, you really do have to bear in mind that a referee's position is not to side with one side over the other. You know, it's not to side with a big team or to worry about the value of the entertainment. That's not what their... Exactly, that's why Oliver's decision was put in. He completely undermined Lee Mason, completely undermined his role as a referee in that situation. The argument as well that I hear that I've seen on Twitter, and I've seen on forums, is that these things even themselves out. Now, I would argue that there isn't an element of truth to that, because, you know, you look at the Norwich game, you could argue that maybe the result could have gone the other way. You could have never... What you would then say in response to that is that if you're going to say that every time something goes wrong against your team, then you might as well just say it's scripted and allow the top teams to just take the wins from whatever games they wish, because ultimately that was a decision that favoured Arsenal, and I reckon that that favoured Arsenal on the ground so that they were a bigger side than Crystal Palace at that point. And he didn't even rule out the Giroud golfer, obviously a high foot, and Joel was within about six feet of him. So, I mean, just don't know what Joel could have done. Like, Joel might have dived in, head first, desperately trying to stop that over again. Just enough that this game was very dangerous. From Giroud. I think not even thinking, was he? On the subject of Joel Ward, there have been some questions about his performance. What did you think, Mike? Do you think that it was... He's not as bad as people say he was yesterday, and he's not as good as people say he is generally. Well, that's that one over then, isn't it? Not much more, it's like... Yeah, I mean, there was some calls of War for England last year, and, you know, I'm not 100% sure about that, but, you know, every quality player has an off-day. I mean, look at the entire Arsenal team last week, you know. Yesterday, we had a couple of guys who maybe weren't at their very best, Balassie and Zaha, maybe not 100% fit. I can't be sure, but they didn't look as sharp. Oh, did he? They didn't look as sharp as I would usually expect from them. But on the whole, you know, I wouldn't want to call it a sub-par performance, but not a classic Palace performance. We were still mixing it with one of the greats from kick-off to the final whistle. And you've got to bear in mind as well that Joel Ward was playing against possibly one of the best midfielders in Premier League last season, one of the best players in the world in the Lexi Sanchez. Yeah, but the mistake in the first half where he sort of let a ball roll past him, and then hesitated, even if you're playing against championship league one player, you don't get that much time in that part of the pitch. That is true. So, yeah, when you know it's a World Cup winner, you've got, you argue, you've got to be even more careful. I think if you're asking on the, doing the typical thing of the team that you're a fan of, you're hyper-critical of, because you see them every week. And if you're asking Ward not to have a game like he had yesterday ever, then you're asking him to be basically the best full-back, or most consistent full-back in the Premier League. Yeah, so you're also asking for the game to be called to no one, so to one, he got the goal, you know? Yeah, it's true. So, it's an interesting point as well, mentioning Zara and Blassey not being a racer. I do think that Joel Ward is a little bit over-hyped by a lot of Palace fans for a variety of reasons. But he didn't get a lot of protection from either winger yesterday, when I switched around a few times, but neither of them was sort of doubling up particularly well and tracking back. Blassey doesn't look fit or distracted or a mixture of both, though, is thinking about being in North London as well. I was like, "I think about it all the time." So, well, yeah, there you go. So, also was a little bit off the ball, and Joel then didn't get the protection that he sort of necessarily would have needed in a match like that to play to his best, and he's not always positionally spot-on. But then again, if he was positionally spot-on, and as mobile as he is and all the other stuff, he wouldn't be playing for Palace Frank. Exactly. But on Ward, he is a very good Palace player, and ergo a good, certainly not elite, and probably just shy of the very good level. But he's better than a huge chunk of Premier League fallbacks, better than someone like a Phil Bardsley say, probably more consistent last season than a Glenn Johnson, probably a better contributor. But I think Palace Frank has expected him to be, we've got this vision of him being this invincible, well-beating, right fallback. It's because he looks a little bit like a superhero. Yeah. So, it kind of, he does quite a lot, doesn't he? Yeah, he's got the quiff. Well, I mean, you hear sometimes some of our fans, and it came up last season saying, you know, he's better than Klein, which is clearly errant nonsense, and, you know... Speaking of quiffs, completely changing the subject. No, where's this going? That's a tenuous link. Conor Wickham, he has a very well-styled quiff. Yes. I thought he had an interesting game as well yesterday. What's the question? What did you think of having a discussion around enforcement? He's leaning into talking with Conor Wickham and seeing what he thought. Do you think that he's someone that you clearly can see that Pargy thinks of Conor Wickham as being a natural successor to Glenn Murray? Yeah, yeah. Do you think Murray would have been better off starting the game? Well, I mean, it's a weird one because it's absolutely spot on what Mike says about fans of a club being ultra critical. The other thing that's very typical of fans is that the grass is always greener. So we moan about our players when they're there week in week out, and then the second they're gone, we're like, "I'll tell you what I was missing from that game, Glenn Murray and Millay, gently." But it was weird watching that game because those two definitely would have brought a kind of stability to that team. So what you said is what we were missing. Yeah, I mean, it's so hard because, you know, ultimately it's hypocritical, but it did feel like there was two bastards missing from the team yesterday. And Glenn Murray's certainly a bastard, not as a man, as a football player. Strong kind of player that rusts up defenders. There you go. It's possible like that. Yeah, it is a stereotype, but I'm sure it's true. The likes of Man City where Murray had a brilliant game against the last season, and you'd probably extend the same argument to any of the other top four, they're probably not used to playing against the player, probably like a lamb and a grand hole in previous seasons, who's played a lot of his career at League One, League Two, and knows how to be a bastard to a borrowing doctor, turn of phrase. The thing with Murray and Wickham, I was thinking about it earlier this week. My take on it is Murray's a player for now. Wickham is, as you guys alluded to, the long-term successor. But if you're playing, at some point, Wickham has to play. So if you're playing Murray for 75, 80 minutes every week, and Wickham gets 10 minutes, you know, a few short cameos, then he's never really going to progress from this player. We talk about this raw 22-year-old who's been missing his at Sunderland. We'd effectively be doing the same thing. I think it's hard. The thing is he's still raw, so he's more mobile than Murray. So he's playing in the games that are going to be a bit more open against the slightly lesser teams in the Premier League. I think yesterday it was crying out for someone who isn't sort of, you know, fresh in the face, and it is a bit longer, and they're taking those out to do really cynical stuff off the ball. And basically, you know, as you say, be a bit of a bastard. And Connor, he rose quite well for quite a lot of headers. I didn't think he did badly at all. Maybe he wasn't lucky enough to score, or other players into play as well. But I think that was, you know, that was one of those games that was probably crying out for a more experienced, more cynical head. Yeah, but if Wickham is the future Murray, and I do agree with that, it does feel like a smooth transition, what is, this sounds like an existential question, what is Patrick Bamford? What is he? Because obviously he's here on loan for a season. But Gail, who nobody seems to fancy, has set me, and I say that in football in terms, and man love terms, is there just sort of collecting dust? Bamford will be gone at the end of the season. Have we got an option on him? I doubt it as well. And I've read an interview with him yesterday, you read that, and you're in the observer. Yeah, he wants to play for Chelsea, right? He's a fail to play for Chelsea. Literally mentions it every two minutes. Yeah, he can't stop talking about it. So how did you have a game with him? He didn't even mention Palace in the whole interview, it was like much of a match, there was nothing to do with Palace, which was frustrating. But obviously he read the whole thing, expecting to hear some Palace news. He wants to be in Chelsea, doesn't he? Well, give him his poshness as well, and I jade he's not here, but we don't need to hear all of us. He does play the violin. Yeah, and I'd speak multiple language. Just for people who can only listen and not see, when I said that, Andy Street's earphones literally fell off his head and shocked a footballer playing the violin. No, he does. But yeah, it's a fair question. What is he to us? Is he there in the basis that Gail's definitely going to go in this window? And so Bamford will be our nippy little guy who we stick along with 15 minutes ago. So I read the director's cut of the same article where there is a bit of a Palace section, and he says he spoke to Pardew, and Pardew said he will get his chance at number nine, which is interesting because I would have thought he's, if anything, he'll get in in the... He's off for the number nine. Yeah, exactly. The behind the structure position, where he's got the same issue, right? Punch and could buy Shamak much, where that beautiful issue we have of competition for places in all the attacking positions. But it is straight. You assume that if Rooney alone's at a player, it's another provider that he's likely to play or start a large chunk of games. And I don't see him, I don't see him fitting in. And just to your previous point, Doc, again, I remember that article. He mentioned how, when he was at Burrey, he played Arsenal last season in the cup, and it was, he didn't get touched. It was a real chasing experience. It was more of a chase than it was a football match. It was just running. And I think you've got to bear that in mind when analysing Wickham's performance yesterday, very Arsenal home or away for a lone striker. It's a tough gig. They'll make you do doggies all day long, more than any other team in the league. So do you think that with that in mind, we touched on the whole jet-knack issue. Do you think that having someone like jet-knack would have actually helped? Because bear in mind that you've got, you're not dealing with big centre midfield units for Arsenal. They're quick and nimble players. So in that case, you've got Kabai, who does a great deal of defending. You can play that box-to-box midfielder role, and then you've got MacArthur alongside him, who is the kind of dogged type. Do you think that in terms of looking at it from a purely logical way, that that was actually not a bad line-up and that those two, you would hope that those two might have made more of a difference? Never, never a bad line-up. So that's a match, that's a match when in line-up with goals potentially all over the pitch and very attack-minded. There's definitely a team that can win a game, a big game even. There's just something about Arsenal that made me feel like yed-knack and Murray might have been the wiser choice. But you know, listen, it's very hard to call. You never know what these boys are doing in training. We all think we're experts who can make better decisions than the managers, but the crucial thing with pundits and amateurs like us alike is that we don't watch training, and you don't know who's showing. For me, that's always been the biggest question over Dwight Gail the past couple of years, because I love Dwight Gail. I can't say it enough, and all he does is score goals. He just comes on and scores goals, and that's all he does. He's one of the very single-minded players, but what we've been through for managers now who just don't pick him. And all I can imagine is that maybe he's not doing in training what the other boys are doing. I think in fairness as well, when it comes to Dwight Gail, he's got this, as you say, it's single-track kind of approach to playing, and then you've got a team where, essentially, we play one person up front, and we did that under Warnock a lot, we did that under Pulis, most of the time. Pulis tried to play him in a wing role, and that didn't seem to work. It did once or twice. It hasn't really a way, for example, where he's got that cracking goal. What a goal. But the problem is, I think, that he doesn't fit into that system. He doesn't fit into the kind of way of thinking where, if you're a winger, you've got to do the tracking back, you've got to be available to go forward which Balassian and Wilfred do so brilliantly. And if you're a striker, then you've got to do some of the dirty work as well, and go and bring other players into play. And I think that's the problem for Dwight, is that, as we said, on last week's party, he's the kind of person that needs to play off another striker. I think we've advanced maybe away from that. I think you're leaving this window, frankly, but I mean, going back to the point on whether it was right because I could buy him a car through a bit more mobile than maybe a jet-knack or a leddy. I mean, who have Arsenal hated playing most over the last sort of 15, 20 years? It's been spoke more at Pulis team or Bolton. And they were just big bastards who would kick lumps out of Arsenal. And I think, you know, jet-knack does get passed around quite easily. But if you've got him and Ledley in that area in front of the back four, just occasionally committing niggly, horrible, just that level of facial hair is enough. Yeah, I mean, I'll just be scared, like, because all of the cost of 300 or something when you've got those two sounds because I would get lost in the forest of those two days. It'd be perfect because he is like a little woodland creature. He really is. Finally, I think it's probably a good idea to touch on Alex McCarthy's performance. I thought he was really a decent stinter in goal. I think it's good vibes, yeah. I mean, I thought he looked nervous in that Norwich game, and he made a couple of, you know, well, his kicking was great because he looked like he was a bit... He looked like he was tempting up and pulling it every time because of that. And he looked a little bit sort of nerdy with the Norwich goal that day as well. But I can't really fault him too much. And he seemed louder as well than he did in the Norwich game, which is just something you always want to see from your back four and keeper. You just want to see loads of shouting, even if they're not even listening to each other. It makes you feel better. Like with Joe Hart yesterday, you see how loud, I mean, it was like the biggest attendance ever at City's Ground, and Joe Hart, you could hear clearly screaming at your atore. A little bit like when Alan Partridge was shouting, "Dan, it was a lot like that." Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not hungry. Mike, what did you think of the... We've seen some mentions on the forums and Twitter that maybe McCarthy could have probably... It could have done better with the Jarrud effort. What did you think? I'd love to see someone do better with that effort. He's going the wrong way. You can't expect a shot from that. How can you possibly expect him to do that? It was behind it. Even you're expecting him to completely... It's in that really awkward area as well, where if you put it just close enough to the keeper's feet, but not so close that you can save it with his feet, but it's down there, and obviously that works really well on an audio-based podcast for the listeners. I'll go down there. If you can't see the listeners, it's down there, and it's a really difficult area to save it, and the ball's coming backwards, it's a brilliant finish. You can't say much more than that. And it's made a couple of saves as well that actually you could argue that there was one where there was a back-heeled flick, and if you haven't had to save, people might have said, "Well, you should have done better." There were a few times where he got praise for making saves where you think, "Well, it's almost the same people that criticise him for the Jiroo goal." And then a shot that he should have saved, which he does save, straight at him, the Oxay Chamberlain chance at the end, a couple of others, the first Sanchez one where before MacArthur cleared it off the line, people call it a great save. But then if that goes in, surely that's much worse of a mistake than the Jiroo goal. That's an interesting point. There's no normal save for a keeper to make. It's either a terrible mistake or a great save. And obviously there's always more focus on the keeper, because that's what gets replayed. You never see the stupid mistake in midfield that was like, you know, a 30 seconds before that made the back-for panic that left the keeper or one of the back-for, two of the back-for-hour positions. You never see that mistake. Or if you do, it's never dwelt on. It's always the keeper. The other thing I would say to people who only criticise keepers is that the vast majority of us who watch football, even don't play the game, or we play like fives or seven sides with a little goal. Those goals are fucking massive. They're huge. Have you ever actually stood by one? I feel for every keeper, because that is terrifying. But they're big aren't they, apart from Sproney. They're quite big. They're quite big, but the goal is bigger. A lot bigger. I'm telling you, there's a lot of goal. For those listeners who've never been near the level of cycle. Don't have a look at the goal. There you go. Don't pitch next week. Look at the goal. I've told you before. Stop looking at the goal on that bombshell. Oh god, we're not talking. But on that note, we're going to wrap things up and join us in part two for questions. Welcome back to part two of the five year plan podcast. It's been brought to you by JC Innovation and Strategy, the global research and brand consultancy from South London. Visit JC-IS.com, as well as vector printing, which is www.vector.co.uk and that's vector with us. For all your printing, the embroidery and the embroidery needs. I've still got those needs. I'm glad that you want to find out. I've got needs, what embroidered stuff are you wearing? Vector is not a sex line, I just won't paraphrase that. Vector with a C is that? This part is all about the questions. We've had quite a few coming today. The first one, how big are the goals? Yeah, fucking massive. If you listen to part one, you'll hear me talk in a bit more detail about it. Because some of these goalkeepers are like six, six, aren't they? And they're not as tall as the goal. So it must be pretty tall. I think Mike covered that as well. So we've got the first question, which is from Josh Nadirajan. Hi, Josh. And he asks Zaha or Balassie, who is more pivotal to the team? Oh, that's a good question. He reckons Zaha, but it's a question margin. We'd better hope Zaha or Balassie's off. Do you really think he's going to go? Well, there's an article today, it wasn't a sign. I really like, no, I didn't say I really like spells, but it was effectively saying, if an offer comes in from a top six site, I'm going to have to think about it seriously. It's rare you get direct quotes from them. That said, according to... According to Chris Grisley, he reckoned that they were rehashed quite from June. They do fail. They sit on these quotes a lot of their time and they just wait for the right time. That sounds uncomfortable. Either way, there was also a Twitter rumor from some random bloke who was basically saying it was a done deal for 19 and a half million, which doesn't sound realistic. Like in half, yeah. I understand the money and whatnot. If we were going to get 20 million for him, that's big for us. Spurs are going to be able to pay him more. He'll be seen by more fans and has profile raise. I understand all of that. But just in terms of just pure professional footballing career, just in terms of your progression as a player, Spurs is a sideways step and any Spurs listening to me, they can have at me for that. But I genuinely believe that Spurs is a much bigger club. But right now, and that's all the players think about, right now, what's happening right now, you're better off at Palace. More above me than Tybels, so you could carry that. They can pay more, given the cliches now about the TV deal being an equalizer. Spurs, we're probably trying off, I'm guessing here, but we're probably trying to offer him a fairly decent contract on par, maybe not quite with a Dan, but getting close to 50, 60k a week, which I wouldn't imagine Spurs would pay much more than that. So it's purely about the prestige. Who are these dynamos that you're going to play with? It's like a sterling situation, and I know Liverpool fans hate him, but they're just watching them yesterday. I was thinking, look at the Megastars he's playing with now, and looking at the Liverpool side as of the end of last season. It's not really anyone there. You could also bear in mind. You could also bear in mind. You could also bear in mind. For Palace, you've got to think about how do you replace someone like that, if you're truly aiming for a top 10 position, because not only are you going to have to get a player in, probably from a lesser club, you then have to hope that they can actually adapt to the way that the team play, and the way that you want them tactically to play. So you've got to have the engine that Balassie has. The thing about Yannick is that he's that creative spark. The argument is that he doesn't create enough, but just by being the player that he is, he creates choices. It makes life really difficult for the players with his tricks. By all means, Spurs could come in with a bid for 19.5 million, but in the greatest game of things, after just spending 10 million on someone like goodbye, do we really want to sell him for 20 million? So we're going to ask the question. I think Balassie, if they're both fit, and they're both on song, because Wolf is still developing and Balassie got a few years on him. I think he probably got to say Balassie, but he doesn't look fit at the amount of Balassie, and he didn't really look on it yesterday. He didn't really look on it when he came on against Norwich. I don't know. We discussed this a bit in the last pod. Balassie's influence, certainly to the wider media, definitely overstated, and possibly a little bit amongst palette fans. In terms of changing games and having consistent games for understanding that wingers aren't always going to be consistent for 90 minutes, but in terms of having really good games, there's only about three or four, and obviously there's the criticism about his end product, about the number of assists and the number of goals. But I think we remember the two Liverpool games, particularly the second one, you remember the Sunderland game we scored a hat trick, but you quite easily forget the whole game and the West Brom game where he didn't contribute much. And Wolf gets, even amongst Balass fans, I think, since he's come back, and that little bit of a tough start on the wall knock, his influence is probably understated. So I think he's underrated, Blass is overrated, slightly, both on their day amongst the best players in the league and can win a game. And isn't it amazing when you see them just switch sides, and the defenders are still trying to work out how to defend their games, one of them, and now they've gone to the other side, and they're struggling with the other. I love that. Well, it was amazing as well, because you also, against Arsenal, you then sort of punch and move to the middle. Sorry, punch and move to the left, the yannick in the middle. I mean, it's just, we get so much flexibility. Yeah, it is a beautiful thing. Personally, if it came down to it, I would say Zaha are purely based on potential and goals. I think when we watch their careers go on, I do believe that Wolf will get more goals than Balassie, no matter what clubs they end up being at. But if Balassie does go, I don't think it's the end of the world because of punch. Josh, thank you for that question. Another one from Josh, a different Josh this time. Bored X-coran. We only do in Josh's tonight. Do you think that a more technical footballing centre at defensive midfield is on party shopping list? And maybe that's why he's looking at potentially selling Znack and Ledley. There's also another question from Basil Piers, which is kind of on the same vein. I don't know, it's surely we can't let Jedi and Ledley go. So I guess if you can roll the two into... You can let one of the two go, and it's really tough. I'm... Yeah, clearly biased. I declared my love for Ledley on the last part, but clearly Millet is an inspirational leader. He's part of the reason why it would be South of Balassie to go is similar to Millet. They're part of the team's journey from the championship to where we are now. And that's one of the really nice things about being a Palace fan right now. You get that game against West Ham, we had seven of them. There's still so many of them. Yeah, it's so good. But it's a very interesting question. We touched on last week was, I think, to the casual observer, to the average Palace fan, the one player we wanted to sign this summer to take us to improve the team was a really good centre-half to partner Dan. And that's the one player we haven't signed. And we keep, you know, Parachal say, we're announcing a new player tomorrow, I think it's going to be a centre-half, and it's Patrick Bamford, or it's Bakery Sacco. So if you were to sign a defensive midfielder now, you'd be more of the same. And you'd expect the next player to be Dan's long-term partner. It was like that period where we needed a left-back for like four years. I mean, bringing a new player, you're like, "It's going to be a left-back now. It's going to be a left-back." Oh no, we brought in Andy Dorn. It's going to be a left-back. It's going to be a left-back. I know it's another right-back. Do you think that it's because we have Kebai that we might not look towards getting another defensive midfielder? Is Kebai the man to take that? I think there's Kebai-related problems coming our way. And I say that as a typical palace pessimist. But I mean, I've watched him quite a bit at Newcastle. And he's so skillful. And it's great to have somebody who actually takes a decent, dead ball as well. But yeah, I don't think he's as tough as either of those two men. And if it does spell the end of one of Ledley or Jedi, because I hate to lose both of them, I guess it was painful as it sounds that it'd have to be Jedi to go mainly based on age, I guess. Yeah. I think I wonder if we've actually milked the best of Jedi. Not saying he hasn't got another season or two in him. Of course he has milked Jedi. Yeah, his skills, not his genitals, which I mean. Well, actually, I mean, I don't know. Footballers get very bored these days, aren't they? They've got so much money and so much time, especially out injured. Who knows what's getting milked? Well, maybe that's why Ledley. I feel like the legal part of me says that should really get cut. The finding that quite funny part says no, a little bit. Try and milk, Ledley. Tilly maybe. Well, you want to see what happens. You want a bit of spunk and see what happens. So I guess Ledley's probably the best. Try and milk, yeah. But now, I was going to say on a serious point, but maybe that was a serious point. It was a serious point. I don't want to discredit it. Humorous. We've had you saying the best out of Zhenak maybe. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. And the same with Balassie. I think when people talk about CPFC 2010 being smarter, and when people talk about the sort of moneyball approach to football, as often as that gets used, I think the principle is milk for most out of the players, and then sell them for once their value to you starts to decline, and you can get the most out of them. Venga did it brilliantly for years, isn't it? Yeah, exactly, right. And all the portos and the leons who, and the electric imagery. That's the speaker. Well, yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting one, really, isn't it? I guess you'd probably, my view of it is that we're seeing Zhenak still on the bench and led him not involved at all. Yeah. I imagine that we'll keep Zhenak if given a choice, if it's not both of them. Well, there was a story, wasn't there, that we were listening to office, for Dudley, if it's not necessary. But on Twitter, I'd ask you those questions. But actually from, I think, a Daddy Mail journalist. So that probably means nothing. Maybe a real shame. I mean, he's the influence he's had in the center of that pitch, for me, is such a tough thing to do to walk into a team and have that kind of influence over proceedings. It's really difficult. Not saying any position is easy, but I'm sure being in that hole there, where the biggest clashes are, it can't be easy to just get him with a new bunch of lads and just suddenly have this influence in the way that he has. And I think that is priceless. I think it's also part of the problem for Paju, maybe, was that when he first arrived, Mille was away on international duty, spent a bit of time playing for Australia. So I think maybe they didn't build that bond. Well, I think that may have played the part. And then with Ledley, Ledley's had, I think there was some fitness issues in terms of his hips or something like that, where that caused him problems where he couldn't play every match. So I think you've got to bet kind of Paju's looked at it from a perspective of not having those players available anyway. And it seemed to be OK without. Yeah, I see it is. But yeah, it's a place that sort of suited for the cautious outlook. I mean, if it was supposed to prove anything, it's that Paju will throw caution to the wind. And maybe that's why you're starting to see those slightly more defensive-minded midfielders being sidelined. If you can get a fair amount of money for Mille, and given his nationality, a couple of people have talked about, maybe the Chinese League or the Middle East, it's close to home, Songpake, it puts three, four million on the table for a 31-year-old. Then maybe he is the right time to tell him. And if this mythical ball-playing central midfielder, as much as we've kind of overrated in that position, yeah, I think a dream signing for me this summer would have been something like Stephen and Zonzi, which clearly had no chance. Someone who is a bastard, but is also technically really good. Is that the highest you aim in your dreams? Yeah. Steve and Zonzi. Yeah. I can't say I'm a dreamt of Zonzi from Interpolis, but I definitely appreciate it when I've seen him. But I think we could do better then. Yeah, and Zonzi. Another really good question, I thought. That was really good. Cheers, Josh. On the next Josh. On the subject of milk. Oliver Moss has got a question for Streety, I think, which is, is Comte just an even more ponzi version of Greer? Well, that's a really good in-joke that two people will get. I mostly got home from the pub last night, and most people binge on like, you know, I can babes on their way home, but I decided to go home and binge on Comte cheese, and then hated myself this morning when I realized how middle class I am. Yes, absolutely. I think it's called Greer de Comte. Is it, so yeah? So it is a more ponzi version. What do you mean, were you just eating? Was it literally just like sat on the side? Organic fair trade, hummus or something like that. We just sat on the sofa, like, munching on a big lump of cheese then. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's a good image, isn't it? Yeah, it was great fun. Nice, nice one. So we've got Beat City Tone is asking, after failing to beat the bottom club at home, is it time for party to go? Nice, that's a very, that's a very good one. Well, they bought them before you thought. I think they will. I think they will. Yeah, they will. Yeah, they probably didn't score today, and they'd let in what, too, I know they couldn't have been, it would have been someone lost three now, didn't they? First weekend, first weekend. I guess they were probably bottomed after the... Oh, what's wrong with point? After the fixtures though, Saturday's fixtures. So see who's done that, yeah? That's a good question. I don't think so. Yeah, bring that Warnock. Give me one second, I'm going to get the rest of the picnic. We've got questions on Facebook as well. I never, ever want to see Neil Warnock's face again. It's nice that he's on radio, Jeremy. Well, not even if you see like, Warnock jailed for... I don't even want to see a photo of Zelda from Terror Hawks. Does that reminds me of Neil Warnock? Or Mrs. Downfire. Mrs. Downfire. I don't want to see any of these bastards. And every game. So Carl Mortimer asks, "Do we feel that if a Palace player was on the same type as Cocklan, would the referee have gone without hesitation? As in, would McArthur have been so awesome?" It was kind of the big club, smaller club debate. Because I mean, McArthur got booked. I just think there's different types of refs who have different ideas about the game. And Lee Mason's one of those ones who thinks, "Oh, I just booked him. I don't want to be one of those trigger happy red card refs." Whereas Michael Oliver's obviously thought, "You know what, this is the rules. That's what I'm doing." He hates red cards. It's about character. I don't think it's like... I don't always buy into this kind of... It's a big club therefore. I mean, Courtoy got sent off at home. Oliver had that performance up at Old Trafford where he refused to give Manionite about a million penalties. Yeah. Not a million. Because obviously that'd be quite a bit of a format. Would you compare it? There was a mishap in there. That game was penalty. Yeah. No, I don't know. It's a really tricky one. I can understand it, but I just don't believe that there's this conspiracy going on with refs. I think it's genuinely down to the man, like the individual and what his instinct tells him. And I totally get that you think, "Oh, that's a good game. Everything's going well. I don't want to be that guy he's been booked." It's your job. I know, but I get it. I'm not defending it. I mean, it's absolutely fucking wrong. But that, to me, is more believable than, "Well, there's Arsenal and there's Chelsea and the conglomerate, the Illuminati and the British. That's what I want them all." That's what Jose Mourinho would have his belief, you know? And once you start believing what he believes, you're done. Another question is from Gareth Davies. A Gareth. Ex-Pala's player. Yeah. Well, I don't think it's him. The Gareth, yeah. It's Gareth's question. Why does Rob not talk towards the microphone when he asks questions? It's because the iPad is away from my coin. How long before the tactics are available? Yes, that's true. How? They're not good, though. Yeah, they said. I'm a huddle. That's led me by Victor.co.uk. Roy de tablets. Roy de tablets, I'm telling you. That's some great consultants you know. I'm telling you. You're nailing it. How long before Pardee noise his best 11? That's a good question, isn't it, given the whole conundrum about deadnack strikers? Wasn't he always a tin commander? New car, so a lot of rotating players in, and rotating players out. So I don't think he's not going to be, you know, last season, Joe Zevarino, played the same team out of Chelsea Morley. Listen, I think there's a tin command, and then there's a man who understands alternatives, who plays each game based on who that particular opposition is, right? In other words, you've got plans, B, C, D, throughout, you know. And I think Pardee is one of those guys, a bit like Gary Monk, who's intelligent enough to look at the opposition and say, "Have I got the personnel to set up the way that I would prefer to set up against this kind of personnel?" And I think that's all Pardee's doing. I don't see him as this guy who's, like, constantly looking, like, Van Hal, I often get the feeling, like, he's just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what it was. Yeah. So he's going to say what's the tin commander? When he picks names randomly out of the hat. Yeah, which is the thing the rest of us. Yeah, which is how they branded Ranieri back in the day. Again, I think slightly unfairly. But, no, I think Pardee is very close, if not there. I just genuinely believe that he picks the team and the squad, actually, for that day. Do you think that's old, like, the pick your best 11 and just stick with that? Is that kind of old school? No, I don't think that's the only one who can style a pro. No, no, but I'm saying he's the opposite of that. Oh, yeah, yeah. He's looking at the best... The best tools to do your job. All you need to do is look at the old school approaches England. If you look at England, all we do is pick who we think the best 11 players are. And that position is just a nonsense way of picking your squad. There could be someone in a team that is, you know, maybe on the outskirts of their club team, but bring something brilliant when they're played with certain other types of players, you know. The Heskey situation is probably the best example of that. Someone who's just, you know, not saying anything on fire, you know, not even himself, unfortunately, but like putting with Owen, and you've got a perfect combination, you know. Sometimes you just gotta pick the right players for your vision, rather than, "Oh, he's the biggest star. He's the biggest star. He's the biggest star." And if there's any weakness, I would say at the moment with Paju, it's my little concern that maybe he feels like he has to pick a bite every week. Um, Kieran Guilford, that was a good question, by the way. I was, did you want to answer anything of that? I think Ben covered that quite well, didn't he? The last question? Yeah, I'll repeat what I'm saying. Kieran Guilford asks whether about Shamak, basically. Where is he? Paju seems to think he's an important player. Play to play for the under 21s, I believe. Yeah, he's been injured, so he's, they basically put him on a very specific training regiment to try and make sure that he doesn't get injured again. Yeah, yeah. Do we think that he's got a good chance of getting back in the team? My dear, he comes back? He seems to think so. So, he's mentioned them a couple of times in recent weeks, saying he's one of our best players, and if we can get 30 games out of him, you know, it's just about, it's just about injuries with him, and if we could get 30 games out of him, he'd be a very important player. You've got like five players who can play at number 10, that's the only one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, you've got Shamak, Marcelli, Kabayag, Ghibli, Punchin. I'm starting to think that Pardieu is going to... Play all of them? Yeah, and see... To play like five number 10s. He'll play one of Wilfmann Yannick, assuming Yannick stays, and do, some, someone mentioned it on the pod last week, bring one of Wilfmann Yannick on after 60 minutes when the Fallback's tired. Play Punch on the wing, but let him drift in, a bit like Silver does for Manchester. Yeah. And then Shamak, well, between Shamak, March Bamford, whoever you want in that number 10 position. But I think he really rate Shamak, and it's just, it's just been injuries that have prevented him from playing. He's another one who is a little bit of a... He's a secret bastard. I think he commits a lot of niggly fouls in a good way for us, which you don't expect from a sort of technical luxury player. And yeah, he would have made a difference yesterday if he played. He could also play the number, he can play up front. I know he doesn't score many. Good hold on, but exactly. And if that allows you to play, if he gets, you know, the great ball player in the team. So when you've got, if you imagine Punch and Shamak, could buy in a McCarthy team, you've got a lot of, got a lot of great technical quality there. Play Morris is a number nine in that Swansea match, the other last season, didn't he? I believe. I think it's Liverpool. I think it's Liverpool. So, you know, he's capable of playing it. And people always go, "Oh, you know, he doesn't score many goals." And what you need is a 20 goal a season strike at night, because that 20 goal a season strike is Sergio Aguero or Harry Kane, or I don't think we can afford him at the moment to be. And we have got goals from London. And he will bring in other players, you know, who can then score goals from midfield or from sort of wide areas. So, you know, I think he's got a future. And yeah, and other football cliches. Yeah, goals are big. Yes. Goals are big. Yeah, that's a good point. I'm not sure if anyone's made that yet. Another question from Michael Fogarty is... Hi, Michael. Do we think Jordan Mutch is much cop? Oh, excuse the pun. But do we think he's up to it? I mean, honestly, can't comment on Mutch. I've not seen Mutch of him. I've not seen Mutch of Mutch. I just know what that's exactly what every Palace fan should say. And yet, and yet everyone is kind of jumping to ridiculous conclusions one way or the other, right? No one's going, "Well, you know, he's doing okay, but let's see what happens." It seems to be one extreme or the other. Like some people are saying he's one of the worst players they've seen play for Palace for a long time. Another people are saying he's brilliant at everything. He does, so... Some will say it's much to do about nothing. Right, you need to get out. Nice. You're brilliant now. Yeah, brilliant to you. That's a good one, right? I'm just talking about the whole plot again now. No, you're right, though. You're definitely right. I think to be fair to Jordan Mutch, he had a really good... I thought he had a really good game against Norwich. Against Arsenal, you're coming into a game with 30 minutes left, and you're being asked to play against, again, a really, really good side who play very, very well in possession. And what's his best position? Well, that's the thing. Like against Norwich, he played in a kind of role just behind Glen Murray, almost the number 10 role. And I think he partly played that role again, against Arsenal. But against Arsenal, you're asking a lot for someone to do what, you know, to be that kind of a threat, because it's not easy to be a threat. That's true. Against a team like that. The biggest problem for him is competition, and if everyone's fit, you'd see him struggling to make that number 10 position, because I don't think he can play as one of the two deep midfielders, and I don't think he can play on a win, or certainly you wouldn't choose him over the plethora of options we got there. But whenever he's played, other than the first couple of games, when he paid and he wasn't fit, he's been good. And he's great in pre-season. We talked about him last week, he, in the sense that he adds a bit more of a powerful presence to that midfield. Gives you another six foot plus man-at-set pieces. I thought they were very good. Very good first off against Norwich. Technically, very adept. He's got a trick on him. He's clearly got great delivery. He's got some cracking goals for Cardiff this season for last. And we've got a good player there. Again, he's 21-22. No, he's not. He doesn't look at it, does he? But he looks like sort of the grizzled sort of 30-something. You might find a tiger at two in the morning. I have no idea. Right, final question. Chris and Manuel. Oh, hi, Chris. Asked whether we should, how much time we should spend reflecting on our position, or should we spend some of it laughing at Millwall? You got smashed four, Neil. Home in League One. Geez, I forgot they went down. Brighton as well. Brighton have just made headlines, well, small headlines, part like, yeah. Basically saying that they're going to have an extended singing section. Allowing fans to move, who don't want to sing, to move away from that. So, I mean, the thing is like, it is nice to laugh at Millwall because, Millwall, I know, it is nice to laugh at Brighton, because they're fundamentally very comedic. But, we are palace. And, you know, history suggests that at some point, we'll have a bit of a fall from where we currently are. So, let's not get too heavy. Even real city fans think, never know. It's really cool. It's still awful. Yeah, to come and introduce. Yeah, I think that's a good way to be. It's a good way to support your club. You should always, always be careful who you shit on on the way up. Because football is all about empires, man. You know, when I was a kid, I never thought anyone would touch Liverpool ever again. They were that good. Do you know what I mean? To say, man, you know, it came to an end, man. Who could have possibly predicted a season as hilarious as David Moyes' season, after what we'd all enjoyed. There were 21-year-old men who'd never seen their team lose anything. Yeah. Imagine that. And then, Moyes destroyed it in a season. Incredible, hilarious. But, that is football. And, it could happen to teams much, much bigger than us. So, we've got to be careful. But, also, Millwall. And, also, we've got so much to talk about that we can't... Yeah, you can't. We can't fit it all in. So, it's crazy. We could just look at them a little bit every now and then just say, well, we could be worse off than we are now. Of course, we could. But, wouldn't you rather... Ooh, can't I know throw something out there? Wouldn't you rather have Brighton the Premier League? So, you get the best of both worlds. Palace playing in top-like football. But, we've got the Derby games. It's a really big Derby game. I mean, there is that, but I like to mitigate against risk. And, if they go up, there's a risk that we could go down the same season until they start up. As someone who was there at the Valley in 2005, I personally have never given much of a shit about Brighton. That's just, that's just me. But, it is an interesting question, what you say. What I would say to counter that is, I'd love to create one of these new Derbys. Because Chelsea City, yesterday, felt like a Derby. It felt like this big, big... Obviously, it's a big game because of the stature of the two clubs. But, they've become rivals in a way that Man United and Arsenal did. And, that became a huge game. Now, you've seen that rivalry dwindle. I actually love to get a new big rivalry. Liverpool. I'd love it to be Spurs. No, Liverpool. Spurs would be fun. Liverpool, we are their bogey team, which is a beautiful, beautiful thing. I suppose, fairly likely, they're all so mid-table team. Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah, they've been... They're trying to make all our players. Yeah, I'll still never forgive them for the Bostock thing. Don't think any of us have. You could even argue they've been an Arsenal shadow for so long that they're not really relevant anymore. Yeah. Well, Arsenal love them regularly, and it's painful. And, in fact, there was a rumour going around after the Spurs win last season that there was a DVD of the game on sale within 24 hours. LAUGHTER Gives you a sense of their scope as a club. And I think they could be rivals for us. New rivals. That was another excellent question, I think. It was, yeah. So, that's it for the second part. Join us in part three for our preview of the Aston Villa and the League Cup Game Against Three Spring. Boom. Hello, and welcome back to the Five Year Plan podcast. Hey! All right, and we're back with part three of three, Mike. Of 146 pods. Yes, indeed. And this podcast. What one was I on? Um... 46. Oh, before. Before this. That's the most honorable question I've ever been able to. How long was it? It was actually pod 67. No, that was... You would have been coming on around, I reckon, 2012. What game did you talk about? Promotion season, I think. Yeah, I think, yeah. I don't think you've been on one since we've been in the Premier League. So... It's good to have you back. It's the third successive season in the Premier League. How nuts is that? It's crazy in all. Third. Fours are a record, so... That's not going to happen, is it? Oh, the first division speak there. You're talking Premier League, yeah. And as every football fan knows, football began in the Premier League. We've found the members, much of that. Yeah, yeah. Well, on that empty sky rhetoric as well, there's the whole thing with the banner, wasn't there? No, probably. Oh, yeah, we did talk about it. Because they tried to do a homestyle fanatic display again. Did they? And they wouldn't let them take it past the cameraman. Who was, like, the sky gantry at the top of the homestyle latte between there and the gallery of the upper tier. And so it sort of looked like a set of drapes, basically, rather than the full banner, because it was sort of hooked up at the middle. So that was a bit of a shame. On that vein, it was also there were apparently quite a few away fans in the home ends, which people were upset about. I think there were some questions about that. And in a lot of ways, I'm, you know, a bit of a woody liberal type. But throw them out. Throw them out. They should not be there. No, it's true. I actually know a couple of guilty parties, and there's a lot of people knowing me. Nah, you know, I'm a little bit of a shame. Me and Emery as Mike does. So I know a lot of the gooners, and I know too... Definitely who were in the homes there yesterday. And I just... First off, I didn't, I couldn't get a fucking ticket. So, like, that makes me angry, that there's gooners in the home end. But secondly, like you say, just the principality of this. This is the principle. If you're going to sit in the home end, don't wear a shirt and don't cheer when they are. Don't wear a shirt. Who wore a shirt? People wearing shirts. There were people wearing shirts. Okay, now my two guys are not wearing shirts. Okay, I get the whole, like, there's an argument that, you know, in this modern society that we live in, there shouldn't be partitions between fan and whatever else. No, no, it was a disgrace. Tribal, it's a disgrace. Tribal, it's tribal, that's what you buy into. I spend the rest of my week being civilized. I don't want to go to the top of the league. What about Zoe? My wife, Arsenal fan. But she would say that... In silence, Pat, wouldn't she? She would say... How does she stick a holder for the last five, six years? But she's adopted. Yeah, and she knows... She knows not to cheer when Arsenal score. She cheered when Palace score at the Emirates last year. There you go, we're turning her. Wow. We're better than Arsenal, aren't we? So these early thoughts would pull to you. Yeah. These early thoughts were brought to you by JC Innovation, and strategy, the global research and brand consultancy from South London. Do not, Arsenal fans are like... I don't think so. Good. No, he's definitely a Palace fan. He's very proud of that fact. Visit JC-IS.com. We'll be a bit of an old business decision as an Arsenal fan to go. Oh, we've got some spare cash. The model is in budget. Let's have the time on the Palace podcast. We can't afford Arsenal's fan TV. Let's go to the FYP podcast. Maybe if you went to vector printing, you could probably get an Arsenal/Palish shirt half and half. Yeah. If there was... And if you start to bench as the Arsenal fan in the homestale, if you started to sense the crowd turning on you, you could get in touch with Vector just before half-time, and maybe they could knock up an embroidered Palace shirt on top of each shirt. We were making some claims about the speed of their shirt. Yeah, I think they'll be. From what I hear, they're very, very fast and very discreet, if need to be. Yes. That's very... It's because most of the businesses have made a game with it. The K or the C list of them. That's a www.vector.co.uk. And that's vector with it. K or the K or the C. K or the one K or the one K. One K or three Ks. Oh, get it out. We've ruined this. No, it's very reputable. It's very reputable company. By the way, we've come to the conclusion that the banner should have probably been on display, and the Arsenal fans in the home bench should probably not have been there. No. Moving on, we've got Aston Villa at the weekend. Boom. And then after that, I think we've got... Chelsea and C. Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury. But I think we could probably cover Shrewsbury in the one... In a word, Aston Villa, maybe? Well, I think it was Shrewsbury this week. So basically, it was Shrewsbury. Everyone under the age of 42. Yeah. Right now, Kevin Downe, James Endocott, are sitting in the corner of a rock in back and forth, kind of not Shrewsbury. Breaking Shrewsbury. Well, partially, I think the alcohol's worse, but also partially because they were a bogey team, apparently in the '80s or '70s or something like that, in the '80s, and Palace Lost against them. No, he went through about six games or seven games where we just couldn't get a win. And we were supposed to be the better side pretty much at that time, so... But I mean, it would be... I clearly didn't tell me about that for a reason. Yeah, because he was probably terrified about it. In case it happened again. That's nice, man. Pierre Aston Villa at the weekend. What are we thinking? I just want to beat Tim Sherwood. He's the biggest man on the planet. And for no good reason, because he strikes me as something of a simpleton, you know? Kind of guy who just randomly gets scared of a type of insect or a dog chasing his own tail or something like that. Maybe get overexcited by a dog chasing his own tail and then scared by a dragonfly. Do you know what I mean? I'd love to get one over him as well. But more importantly, just from a footballing point of view, Chelsea and C is going to be hard, man. Like, I knew... It's terrible to say this as a Palace fan, but I knew he wouldn't be Arsenal the second that they lost to West Ham. That was the worst possible result for me. I was hoping they'd walk all over West Ham and then come to sell hers with a swagger, and we'd cut them short, you know? The opposite happened. And I just worry that we're going to hit Chelsea perfect time for a, you know... Well, I was listening to... A rebound. I was listening to another podcast. What? Yeah, sorry. Jesus Christ, what? Known... I don't know how many times you want to kick off of this show. You discussed me. The Guardian podcast. Oh! You could probably tell by my... I don't know. What spells are in the need for non- flasking a game, fans? Shakespeare references. The fucking Guardian. Sorry. They were saying... A carrot eating carrots as well. Yeah, got it. No, that's an excellent one. But they were saying that... Filipo Clara on there was saying that... Ooh, the last time Chelsea lost two games, lost at the first two games. Is this the pin guy? Just listen. The last time Chelsea... I just think Harold Baldwin was the last one. The last one. Even below, man. The last time Chelsea. Is Filipo Clara talking about it? The last time Chelsea lost their first two games, they went on a 20-match unbeaten run. So, obviously, that's going to be a fearful game. But we're here to talk about Villa. Yeah, true, true, true. So, I mean, one of the players that we might be facing is Rudy Castead. I'm scared of him, other than that. And Castead was someone that we were very close to signing last season. That's true, yeah. So, I mean, is that... Well, actually... Is that just... Maybe at all. Supposedly. But Blackburn had a valuation and we didn't fancy him at that price. I'd love him at Palace. He's just got all the hallmarks of a cult here, right? Has he? Big hair. Big hair, like, swash. Amazing in the air. But that goalie scored against Bournemouth. It was just fantastic to watch. He's a second. From what I hear, that's what he does. I don't know if anybody has scored more headers than him. I heard some crazy snat about him. In the last few years... Yeah, something crazy, actually, yeah. He's the Premier League second-ever player from Benin. Is it always wrong? Who was the first? Ooh. Well, he think on that. That's a good question. It's a second time we've got Benin on... Whoa! Is he going to do this, all fucking what? Sorry. That's your little puns on the Guardian. Castead. Every time I mention Benin. Oh, he'll mention it. No, but yeah. I'm not going to guess it. Who's the first? Yeah. You're about. Well, who was the first? Steph, I'm testing you on. Oh, I would not got that. Is he from Benin? Yeah. Ben out. Yeah, you're so... The thing that's interesting about Villa as well, is they've actually spent quite a bit of money. They saw Ben taking, but they've obviously used that money to buy other players. Yeah. To buy. To buy... They got racks of two million. Racks of two million. Who was it that they signed this? It's got Sinclair. Michael Richards. Mark Bunn. It's Drister Gay. Jordan Namavi. Jordan Aiyu. Jose Angel Crespo. Jordan Veratou. Rudy Gustav and Adama Trelrais. Jesus, that was all off the top of your head. Yeah, it's quite a bit. You really hit it. Jordan Aiyu's not good. They got the wrong brother. Yeah. I don't know if it was one of those things, like where Gibbs should have got the sending off when it was walking, whichever way round it was. Isn't it a story with John Barnes and... Yeah, Luther Blissett. Luther Blissett. That Uve wanted to sign John Barnes. John Barnes. They've got the wrong brother. And what for literally sent Luther Blissett to meet him with Uve? I mean, got on the side, signed him instead. And it seems that that's kind of what happened. That's incredible. The interesting thing as well is that Idrisa Gay, when he signed for Aston Villa, said that he was really looking forward to playing for Villa because he was looking at them as a stepping stone onto bad things. Wow, that's what you want to hear in the press conference. He's really committed to the cause. I think that Villa are obviously that they're not going to be... Do you think they're going to be the awful side they were last season? I think Villa awful side. I think the Villa in the past four or five years have finished something like 17th, 17th, 16th, 15th, 17th, 17th, something along those lines. I mean, I'm sure that's not exactly right, but it's not more than a couple of places off. They've been terrible for a long, long time. And I think if we're just about our game and just get out, I don't think they can live with us. And I know that's bold talk, but I think we have to approach the game that way because we've got two games that nobody's going to be back in us to win after that. We lost too many games against teams like Villa last season. Yeah, for real. Well, we lost to Villa. And other similar teams. No, but I think that the hardest team in the League to call one of the hardest. Yeah, they are very unpredictable. On top of their poor recent record, they've lost their two best players. Then they've gone on this new castle circa 2011, 2012, strategy of signing Legan's best players, or the more highly rated players. So, gay, I know, has got rave reviews last season. They signed supposedly the best left back in the League, or the left back and got the most assists or something like that. And then Verra 2, he played in the same under 21 team as Pogba. And he's highly rated. So, it's one of those situations where they all gel. They're like the party team that finished sixth with your kabayas and your debushies. But you look at them and you've got to think there's a soft center there. I also think the other thing that's hugely in our advantage is I just don't believe that whatever Sherwood's got planned, and believe me, I don't think it's any more than a monkey with a crazy face with symbols crashing around his head, but whatever he's got planned, that team's not gelling before we play them. As someone brilliantly pointed out before, there was a time very recently where you could see seven of our 11 who came up from the championship. We're a team, a proper team, and I think Villa might gel and do great things, but my instinct tells me it's not going to be before we meet them. I think Palace is a good example that if you have the right unity inside, you can then gradually make changes that actually improve the squad without actually affecting the team spirit. And with Villa, you could argue that there's a risk for them that they've actually looked to make too many changes at once. And the thing about them is that they'll look good in fits and spurts, but they won't be consistent. The only fear that I have is that there's a possibility of there being a continuation of that kind of poor home for you, and that might play on Palace fans minds. Do you think that might be something where Palace fans get a little bit nervous now with... Yeah, maybe. I think we're all aware that we're not what a great home record, and I think if we were to get a gold, it was like the West Brom game last season. Well, they scored after two minutes from their first chance, and you think here we go, and then the ground has a collective side, and you almost know there's no coming back from that. But again, we discussed it last week. A lot of last season was put down to particularly the discrepancy between home and away form. It was having this awful pitch at home, which supposedly was really hard. It was like running on sand. It was awful. So it really didn't play to our sort of counter-attacking, pacey strengths, and now we've invested in this uber luxury pitch as good as the pitch at Wembley. So again, without wanting to repeat ourselves, you'd think that'll make a big difference in terms of our more important players. And I think the strengths Villa have, the ones you'd imagine they have, are clearly Kistet's aerial presence, but if any team in the Premier League set up to deal with that, it's your dance and your delay-neys. That should be there bread and butter. Clearly, he'll give him a tough game in the air, but you'd like to think we're well, reasonably well with that. Did he play a whole game against Bournemouth? I think he came off. I don't know if he's completely 100% yet, so hopefully he was brought on for weeks. He brought on for them. Who did they play at the weekend again? Man United. I think he played part of that game as well, I don't think he started. So I guess with that Bournemouth, and are you in Sinclair on the Wings? Of course, and Claire, we all know how good it can be. It can be, or was. Given the fear that some of our fans had about Ward that there might be, that might be the... I think if Ward has heard any criticism this week, he'll step it up. He strikes me as that kind of guy. And as we said earlier, he scored that, we wouldn't have been in the game if it hadn't been for his contribution as well. So I think the fear, I guess, is maybe that any manager now will look at a team's weaknesses. What weaknesses do Palace have in comparison to Villa? Is there like one area that really they should be focusing on? Yeah, I think you'd like to think you can attack Swari down our left-hand side. I think he's received some criticism, which is fair. You know, he's brilliant going forward. But if you're pinpointing areas of weakness, it's there. And you're probably thinking, given what we discussed earlier, there's a bit more of a softer centre in that centre and field. Not that McCarthy and Cabaya pushovers. And you know, Cabaya got a really high number of fouls, got a really high number of yellow cars. So he's clearly, he's not going to pussyfoot around them in that midfield. But if you're Sherwood, and you get past the monkey with the symbols, the dog chasing his tail and the dragonfly. Yeah, you might, I think, I think, I think... She's telling you that. Yeah, of course his fucking little wings are banged. It's amazing. Shit, there's a dog chasing his fucking tail. Oh, that's lovely, that. That's a creative show in impression. Where's my jillie? Might be paying. Yeah, some show. I guess rounding it off. What are our score predictions? Seven-six to Palace. Those goals are very big. That's all I've taken away from today. The goals are very big. I don't want them thinking, is why is Yannick Blacksey not scoring more? All these companies put it on it. There's two milking midfielders, is what we need to do. I think we are capable of winning that one and we're all winning that one. And we're not going to keep a clean sheet all season. So I'm going three-one Palace. I was going to go three-one as well. But you can't do it. I'll stick to it. All right, two-one. Neil, Neil. Wow, you've got Tim's show. I'm sure that Yannick's part of you is definitely not. It's going to be that match match of the day where they say, "Can you believe that the two teams you haven't ever clean sheet for so long?" And would you believe it? I like your thing. I reckon two, Neil, to Palace. But the thing is, I think you look at Palace's team. If you're picking fantasy football teams, you don't want to pick any of our centre backs or our goal group, because they'll lose points just because we do concede that many times. Mm-hmm, this is true. Yeah, that's my fault. I want to say a quick word in favour of Swari, because I thought it was brilliant on Sunday. Yeah, I really did. I loved his dynamism. I thought he looked strong. He looked fast. I could see how you can get him behind him if he's not got cover. But I think if he's constantly in conversation with someone who will track back, which has established maybe an issue for us, I think he could be a real real fine for us. It takes time to build up relationships like that as well, though, doesn't it? Like, winger backs and wingers. I like him, because he's one of the few players that he can genuinely use the adjective "swashbuckling". You only get swashbuckling fallbacks. That's true. You don't get a swashbuckling striker, but someone who's like swashbuckling forward from fallbacks in. He's the type of man that rubbed my gorn a Swari with. [LAUGHTER] Hey! [LAUGHTER] Oh, a bit. Nice. Right, on that note, I'm going to round that podcast off, I think. Andy, thank you very much for appearing. Oh, I'm always here, I don't know. [LAUGHTER] You're welcome. Making a regular appearance. Mike, as well, for hosting us with your carrots and wine and crisps. You're very welcome. And the fragrance of the Emirates. Yes, indeed. And Ben, what about the fragrance, guys? Ben, thank you for making us a rare appearance. I know, you know what, it won't be this rare again. I'll be back within two years. So I'm going to tell you. Do you want to plug in a thing before we go? Oh, yeah, yeah. If you're listening, come to the tour. I'm going to go on tour with the stand-up show. A new one called The Weird Way Round, starting in the first week of September. So get on livenation.co.uk and have a look for tickets. You've got to have them on iTunes, as well. Oh, yeah, there's like a comedy album. James is the one in Rachel. [LAUGHTER] Oh, you slip that in so nicely. Yeah, empty frets is just a collection of all the fans' favorites, really, from the past few years on the comedy circuit. So, yeah, get a copy of that. And finally, JD is probably going to be taking over again when he gets back from Edinburgh. So it was a real pleasure, as always, to be hosting the podcast. I'll show you more. And actually, I'll see you next time. Cheers, Rachael. Cheers, Rachael. It's really, really well. Cheers. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] It's time to get your checking account to zero with three checking from PennFen. That's zero ATM fees, zero balance requirements, and zero time spent waiting for your paycheck to direct deposit, because you can receive it up to two days early. Open your account with just $25 and see how big zero can be. Apply online today at penfed.org/freechecking. Early direct deposit eligibility may vary between pay periods and timing of payers funding. To receive any advertised product, you must become a member of PennFen, insured by NCUA. [MUSIC PLAYING] This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. [BLANK_AUDIO]
The boys are back after the Arsenal game and there is anger and frustration in the air. On the plus side, they are joined by Doc Brown to provide some comedic distraction and chat about why it's difficult being a goalkeeper and what Palace are missing at the moment. So join us again for another hour (and a bit) of Palace chat. Eagles!
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