Post by QPR Report on Sept 15, 2009 12:19:32 GMT
Crystal Palace Official Site
Next Up : QPR
Posted on: Tue 15 Sep 2009
Local derbies are very thin on the ground this year, so this midweek clash under the lights at Loftus Road promises much, especially given that the Rangers side is littered with ex-Palace players.
Ben Watson was the latest player to join the R's, albeit on loan, at the end of the transfer window after making just one appearance for Wigan this season under Roberto Martinez's stewardship. He joins up with Wayne Routledge, Fitz Hall, Gary Borrowdale, and Mikele Leigertwood in a side that hasn't really set the world alight despite having the tag of being the richest side in the league.
There have been eight different managers in just two years at Loftus Road, the latest incumbent being Jim Magilton who has witnessed just one league win so far in his tenure.
Palace's recent record against their London rivals has been decent with no defeats in the last five games. Last season's two encounters produced no goals whatsoever, with the Eagles last victory two years ago at White City when an early Damion Stewart goal was cancelled out by strikes from Clint Hill and Clinton Morrison to seal a 2-1 win.
Team News :-
Queens Park Rangers :-
Defender Fitz Hall will not play against his former club because of a groin problem, and Angelo Balanta is still nursing an ankle injury.
Captain Martin Rowlands could return to the starting line-up following his own recent absence with an ankle injury.
Crystal Palace :-
Centre-back Paddy McCarthy is available after serving a ban and is expected to go straight back into boss Neil Warnock's starting line-up.
Freddie Sears picked up a knock against Sc**thorpe and faces a fitness test.
Match Officials :-
Referee : Mr M P Russell (Games: 10 Yellow Cards: 22 Red Cards: 1)
Assistant Referees :- Mr M George & Mr R P Whitton
4th Official:- Mr S P Rubery
Latest Meetings.
2008/09 QPR 0 Crystal Palace 0 Crystal Palace 0 QPR 0
2007/08 QPR 1 Crystal Palace 2 Crystal Palace 1 QPR 1
2006/07 Crystal Palace 3 QPR 0 QPR 4 Crystal Palace 2
Crystal Palace wins
Draws
QPR wins
League
29
25
30
FA Cup
0
3
4
League Cup
0
0
1
Other
0
0
0
Total
29
28
35
Ticket Information :-
The tickets are now on general sale.
The prices are Adults £30, Concessions (Over 60s - ages 19 -21 and under 16) £20. Betting
Betting with bet365.com
If you fancy your chance for Palace to win 2-1 with Victor Moses scoring first, you can get odds of 75/1 by CLICKING HERE
www.cpfc.co.uk/page/Preview/0,,10323~1795416,00.html
Crystal Palace Coach Mick Jones Perspective
The Mick Jones Blog
Saturday's defeat was disastrous really. It wasn't something that we or anyone else expected and, in truth, we never saw it coming - I don't think anyone did.
Before the game there was an air of expectancy to get a positive result and put ourselves in a good league position. Instead, after three or four minutes we managed to put ourselves under pressure, which is ridiculous, especially when you consider the manner in which we conceded that first goal.
What Neil finds remarkable and hard to understand is that he expected us to have been caned on Saturday night, but yet the fans were still supporting us.
Now the players can't have any more than that. In any normal situation they would get, and fully deserve, a lot of stick
But Neil remarked to me and Curley that he expected an awful lot of criticism from fans and yet there is still a lot of backing, so I think people maybe realise that hopefully that was a one off and will not happen again.
I did notice that there were a lot of people leaving, but to be honest that is natural and would happen at any club in the world.
Nobody is going to attach any blame to the fans because they do not kick a ball.
It gets under my skin when players take the easy route and say the fans of certain clubs are murder because they pick on certain players - that is garbage.
All fans in the country, if you are playing hard, win and work hard they cheer, but if you don't then they jeer and if you can't accept that responsibility then you should not be in football.
But we are comfortable with the fans. Myself, Neil and Curley, we have talked about this many times and we are comfortable with the attitude of the fans.
This Saturday I saw a footballer run 70 yards and slide towards the opposition fans and they are throwing all sorts of things at him, but that is the nature of fans.
Fans are to be respected. Footballers are privileged and should never worry about hearing fans opinions because all fans work hard and they spend their money and they get nowhere near what the players get.
So I think it is only fair that if they feel the team has let them down that they express their opinions. It is not a big problem for professionals because you have got to handle the situation.
But it was a bad day all round and I think Neil, after the game used the word 'embarrassment'. I can see why he would be embarrassed in front of our own fans because it represents him.
That night myself and Keith went straight to the Gaffer's house for a meeting and then we met again the following morning before we met the players.
The purpose of our meeting was to discuss ways of very quickly eradicating what went wrong and develop plans to put it right.
Saturday night, normally, is the one chance you get to be with your families, but I knew as soon as the second goal went it, let alone the fourth, that my Saturday night and Sunday would be ruined.
But that is part and parcel of the game and I know how the manager works - he would not rest on this. He was taken aback by the performance and it knocked him out of his stride.
Typical Neil though, Saturday night he is calling meetings with his staff, Sunday morning he is calling another meeting with his staff and then another one with the players.
There is no way he would let this fester over Saturday night and Sunday morning, or even Tuesday. This had to be put to bed very quickly.
I cannot disclose the actual conversations that were had in those meetings. The one thing I have learnt in my experience of football is what is said in dressing rooms stays in dressing rooms, because if you go public with comments you lose the respect and faith of the players.
They can accept anything as long as it is behind close doors and to make it public is not the correct thing to do.
But I can tell you what training was like on Monday. It was quiet at first, a bit subdued. People were a little bit round shouldered, but by the time we had finished it was lively, happy and people were getting back to the right attitude.
I have made this point before that if you lose a game, no matter in what fashion, you have got 24 hours to sulk and that is it. You do not get any more sulking time.
And if you win a football match you have got 24 hours to celebrate and enjoy it because you have got to get back to work. I live by that.
I can't stand having miserable people round me. While I understand the players might be down, you can't let that stew; that atmosphere has to be lifted quickly.
And I just don't like people round me who have a negative attitude towards anything in football. I have a saying in my life that whenever people ask "how are you?", I say "normal" because the alternatives are rubbish. That is how I feel about life and that is how I feel about football.
Another blow for us was the late tackle on Freddie. We are still unsure of the damage he has sustained, but he went for a scan on it and we are now waiting on the results.
It was a frustrating day all round for him really. He made a great chance for Alassane that he should have scored - it was an open goal and he should be sticking those ones away.
And then he missed the penalty. It was not a situation of his own making though because normally if Ambrose is on the field he takes the penalties, if not then Danns takes them.
However, the players decided at that stage of the game that it would be better to get Freddie on to the score sheet for his own confidence.
But in the Manager's opinion the designated penalty taker will take the penalties. That was made very plain to all after the game. The players decided with the best motives in mind but it's something that won't be happening again.
Certain people may believe that the decision to let him take a penalty could backfire on him and damage his confidence further, but I don't think so.
The thing Freddie has got is a good temperament. I remember when we signed him there were two other clubs in for him and he was going to meet them after us.
But when he got home his dad phoned us and said that "we are not going to meet the other two clubs, we feel this is the right decision", which it will be and is.
We are very pleased with Fred. I remember Alan Shearer going 13 games without scoring a goal and the only person who wasn't worried was Shearer. I think Fred has got that temperament and he just needs one to set him on his way.
Tonight though we travel to QPR and our thoughts must be focused on that. Personally I don't think there is any more pressure on us now than there would have been anyway.
I think it is vital though that we have a game tonight. I would have hated a long week and to have to still suffer the burden of last Saturday.
Of course, if we had won at the weekend then obviously it would have seen us closer to the top six, but if we win tonight it will still put us in the top half and so the most important thing is that we must perform well.
On another note there is a very high possibility that Ben Watson could feature for QPR.
Everyone knows the respect we have for Ben. When we had him, Tom Soares and Shaun Derry together it was the best midfield in the league at the time.
It is unfortunate in both Tom and Ben's cases that they were only in their early twenties when they left us because we felt they had a lot of developing to do and Palace could have been the place for them to do that.
But football moves along with finance and once a Premiership club comes in for a player, unless you are the top of the Championship the chances are that you are going to lose him.
I think both Ben and Tom have found it hard to come to terms with the demands of the Premiership and the consistency you need in the Premiership, and that is why they have both been loaned out.
But there is no doubt about that both of them are terrific professionals. Ben was respected by everyone here, and still will be, but tonight he is part of the enemy and that means only one thing - we can't worry about anyone outside our own performance.
And then we return home next weekend to face Derby County. Our performance will be paramount. I am sure that there there will be some nerves going into that game, but I think as a footballer you have got to have the right temperament.
If you can't perform in front of your own fans and there is a fear there then you have to look at yourself.
We work in a highly professional arena, coping with pressure is a massive part of a player's development and if we can't cope with that then somewhere down the line you will struggle.
On one final note I would like to mention the Reserves' result last week. It was a great result and there were a lot of stand out performances.
But two players that will undoubtedly have caught people's attention because of the goals they scored are Kieron Cadogan and Matthew Wright.
They are two promising youngsters but I don't think we will see them this year. I think we have enough youngsters who we have seen can be very inconsistent.
However, I am very aware of Cadogan in particular because I think he has the qualities of becoming a first team player.
He has got a terrific temperament and apart from Darren Ambrose, he has got the best touch in the club and can get goals from the wings and the middle.
But we have got to be careful not to swamp the first team with youngsters.
We have got an outstanding crop of youngsters, not only the ones on the verge of the first team now, but the ones underneath and it is important that we don't flood the first team with them because then you put a massive and unnecessary pressure on them.
What people have to remember is that when a youngster has talent they have to live with the responsibility of having talent.
People expect a performance every week and a young player can't produce every week, so their time spent in the first time has to be carefully considered.
But certainly on Saturday night one of the topics of conversation was about playing some of youngsters more and give them a lot more games than we anticipated because the defeat on Saturday was not the fault of any of our young players.
All the mistakes that were made were by the more experienced players; they cost us the game not the youngsters and the one thing we realised following Saturday's result is that the future of this club is with the youngsters more than ever before.
We only had one email this week to put to Mick. It was from Paul Fitton, who wrote:
Considering that during our play off run in the 07/08 season when 5''10 Clinton Morrison spearheaded our attack and we were forced not to punt aimless hoofs at his head and played the best football I've seen in my Palace supporting career, do we decide that pumping the ball up to a 6'4 target man and hoping he wins a flick on and lands at one of our players feet is the way forward?
No it is not the way forward and never has been. It is a fallacy. It is like saying Heskey should not be in the England team and Peter Crouch should not be in the Spurs team or Torres should not be in the Liverpool team. Size has not got anything to do with it.
If you have people like John Carew who can score headers and build up the play as well then you are fortunate, but the best strikers in the world have always been around 5'10".
The leading goalscorers in the world have all been under six foot. So if you are fortunate to have a Clinton Morrison who we have lost to a club who could offer him more money, there is nothing you can do about that in modern football.
Players move because of finance and Clinton moved purely for finance, Shefki Kuqi moved purely for finance. We just did not have the money to keep both of them.
And they both, irrespective of their two different styles, had good goal scoring records, but we just couldn't keep them.
But if there is a 5'10 striker who can score goals and it means changing our style of football then Neil is very adaptable to it then that will happen.
We have to remember that when we went to QPR and beat them in our first season we had Jamie Scowcroft, a 6ft 3, 6ft 4 centre forward and Clinton Morrison playing off him so it doesn't really matter what the size is it is capability of scoring goals you will always be wanted at football clubs, they are hard to find.
We are looking now. I went to a game last night to watch a 5'11 centre forward who, irrespective of his size, is a centre forward with a reputation and someone that we might get on loan with a bit of luck.
Our determination of getting good a striker will never cease. I have never spent more time on the road than ever before and Ronnie Jepson too has been watching strikers for us. Tonight he will be at a game looking at a player who is a different type of striker than I watched, but could be a possibility.
Mick's blog will continue throughout the season right here on cpfc.co.uk. Next week Mick will look back at the QPR and Derby fixtures as well as answering your questions.
If you want to raise an issue or have a question for Mick then send them in to info@cpfc.co.uk.
www.cpfc.co.uk/page/MickJonesBlogDetail/0,,10323~1797514,00.html
Next Up : QPR
Posted on: Tue 15 Sep 2009
Local derbies are very thin on the ground this year, so this midweek clash under the lights at Loftus Road promises much, especially given that the Rangers side is littered with ex-Palace players.
Ben Watson was the latest player to join the R's, albeit on loan, at the end of the transfer window after making just one appearance for Wigan this season under Roberto Martinez's stewardship. He joins up with Wayne Routledge, Fitz Hall, Gary Borrowdale, and Mikele Leigertwood in a side that hasn't really set the world alight despite having the tag of being the richest side in the league.
There have been eight different managers in just two years at Loftus Road, the latest incumbent being Jim Magilton who has witnessed just one league win so far in his tenure.
Palace's recent record against their London rivals has been decent with no defeats in the last five games. Last season's two encounters produced no goals whatsoever, with the Eagles last victory two years ago at White City when an early Damion Stewart goal was cancelled out by strikes from Clint Hill and Clinton Morrison to seal a 2-1 win.
Team News :-
Queens Park Rangers :-
Defender Fitz Hall will not play against his former club because of a groin problem, and Angelo Balanta is still nursing an ankle injury.
Captain Martin Rowlands could return to the starting line-up following his own recent absence with an ankle injury.
Crystal Palace :-
Centre-back Paddy McCarthy is available after serving a ban and is expected to go straight back into boss Neil Warnock's starting line-up.
Freddie Sears picked up a knock against Sc**thorpe and faces a fitness test.
Match Officials :-
Referee : Mr M P Russell (Games: 10 Yellow Cards: 22 Red Cards: 1)
Assistant Referees :- Mr M George & Mr R P Whitton
4th Official:- Mr S P Rubery
Latest Meetings.
2008/09 QPR 0 Crystal Palace 0 Crystal Palace 0 QPR 0
2007/08 QPR 1 Crystal Palace 2 Crystal Palace 1 QPR 1
2006/07 Crystal Palace 3 QPR 0 QPR 4 Crystal Palace 2
Crystal Palace wins
Draws
QPR wins
League
29
25
30
FA Cup
0
3
4
League Cup
0
0
1
Other
0
0
0
Total
29
28
35
Ticket Information :-
The tickets are now on general sale.
The prices are Adults £30, Concessions (Over 60s - ages 19 -21 and under 16) £20. Betting
Betting with bet365.com
If you fancy your chance for Palace to win 2-1 with Victor Moses scoring first, you can get odds of 75/1 by CLICKING HERE
www.cpfc.co.uk/page/Preview/0,,10323~1795416,00.html
Crystal Palace Coach Mick Jones Perspective
The Mick Jones Blog
Saturday's defeat was disastrous really. It wasn't something that we or anyone else expected and, in truth, we never saw it coming - I don't think anyone did.
Before the game there was an air of expectancy to get a positive result and put ourselves in a good league position. Instead, after three or four minutes we managed to put ourselves under pressure, which is ridiculous, especially when you consider the manner in which we conceded that first goal.
What Neil finds remarkable and hard to understand is that he expected us to have been caned on Saturday night, but yet the fans were still supporting us.
Now the players can't have any more than that. In any normal situation they would get, and fully deserve, a lot of stick
But Neil remarked to me and Curley that he expected an awful lot of criticism from fans and yet there is still a lot of backing, so I think people maybe realise that hopefully that was a one off and will not happen again.
I did notice that there were a lot of people leaving, but to be honest that is natural and would happen at any club in the world.
Nobody is going to attach any blame to the fans because they do not kick a ball.
It gets under my skin when players take the easy route and say the fans of certain clubs are murder because they pick on certain players - that is garbage.
All fans in the country, if you are playing hard, win and work hard they cheer, but if you don't then they jeer and if you can't accept that responsibility then you should not be in football.
But we are comfortable with the fans. Myself, Neil and Curley, we have talked about this many times and we are comfortable with the attitude of the fans.
This Saturday I saw a footballer run 70 yards and slide towards the opposition fans and they are throwing all sorts of things at him, but that is the nature of fans.
Fans are to be respected. Footballers are privileged and should never worry about hearing fans opinions because all fans work hard and they spend their money and they get nowhere near what the players get.
So I think it is only fair that if they feel the team has let them down that they express their opinions. It is not a big problem for professionals because you have got to handle the situation.
But it was a bad day all round and I think Neil, after the game used the word 'embarrassment'. I can see why he would be embarrassed in front of our own fans because it represents him.
That night myself and Keith went straight to the Gaffer's house for a meeting and then we met again the following morning before we met the players.
The purpose of our meeting was to discuss ways of very quickly eradicating what went wrong and develop plans to put it right.
Saturday night, normally, is the one chance you get to be with your families, but I knew as soon as the second goal went it, let alone the fourth, that my Saturday night and Sunday would be ruined.
But that is part and parcel of the game and I know how the manager works - he would not rest on this. He was taken aback by the performance and it knocked him out of his stride.
Typical Neil though, Saturday night he is calling meetings with his staff, Sunday morning he is calling another meeting with his staff and then another one with the players.
There is no way he would let this fester over Saturday night and Sunday morning, or even Tuesday. This had to be put to bed very quickly.
I cannot disclose the actual conversations that were had in those meetings. The one thing I have learnt in my experience of football is what is said in dressing rooms stays in dressing rooms, because if you go public with comments you lose the respect and faith of the players.
They can accept anything as long as it is behind close doors and to make it public is not the correct thing to do.
But I can tell you what training was like on Monday. It was quiet at first, a bit subdued. People were a little bit round shouldered, but by the time we had finished it was lively, happy and people were getting back to the right attitude.
I have made this point before that if you lose a game, no matter in what fashion, you have got 24 hours to sulk and that is it. You do not get any more sulking time.
And if you win a football match you have got 24 hours to celebrate and enjoy it because you have got to get back to work. I live by that.
I can't stand having miserable people round me. While I understand the players might be down, you can't let that stew; that atmosphere has to be lifted quickly.
And I just don't like people round me who have a negative attitude towards anything in football. I have a saying in my life that whenever people ask "how are you?", I say "normal" because the alternatives are rubbish. That is how I feel about life and that is how I feel about football.
Another blow for us was the late tackle on Freddie. We are still unsure of the damage he has sustained, but he went for a scan on it and we are now waiting on the results.
It was a frustrating day all round for him really. He made a great chance for Alassane that he should have scored - it was an open goal and he should be sticking those ones away.
And then he missed the penalty. It was not a situation of his own making though because normally if Ambrose is on the field he takes the penalties, if not then Danns takes them.
However, the players decided at that stage of the game that it would be better to get Freddie on to the score sheet for his own confidence.
But in the Manager's opinion the designated penalty taker will take the penalties. That was made very plain to all after the game. The players decided with the best motives in mind but it's something that won't be happening again.
Certain people may believe that the decision to let him take a penalty could backfire on him and damage his confidence further, but I don't think so.
The thing Freddie has got is a good temperament. I remember when we signed him there were two other clubs in for him and he was going to meet them after us.
But when he got home his dad phoned us and said that "we are not going to meet the other two clubs, we feel this is the right decision", which it will be and is.
We are very pleased with Fred. I remember Alan Shearer going 13 games without scoring a goal and the only person who wasn't worried was Shearer. I think Fred has got that temperament and he just needs one to set him on his way.
Tonight though we travel to QPR and our thoughts must be focused on that. Personally I don't think there is any more pressure on us now than there would have been anyway.
I think it is vital though that we have a game tonight. I would have hated a long week and to have to still suffer the burden of last Saturday.
Of course, if we had won at the weekend then obviously it would have seen us closer to the top six, but if we win tonight it will still put us in the top half and so the most important thing is that we must perform well.
On another note there is a very high possibility that Ben Watson could feature for QPR.
Everyone knows the respect we have for Ben. When we had him, Tom Soares and Shaun Derry together it was the best midfield in the league at the time.
It is unfortunate in both Tom and Ben's cases that they were only in their early twenties when they left us because we felt they had a lot of developing to do and Palace could have been the place for them to do that.
But football moves along with finance and once a Premiership club comes in for a player, unless you are the top of the Championship the chances are that you are going to lose him.
I think both Ben and Tom have found it hard to come to terms with the demands of the Premiership and the consistency you need in the Premiership, and that is why they have both been loaned out.
But there is no doubt about that both of them are terrific professionals. Ben was respected by everyone here, and still will be, but tonight he is part of the enemy and that means only one thing - we can't worry about anyone outside our own performance.
And then we return home next weekend to face Derby County. Our performance will be paramount. I am sure that there there will be some nerves going into that game, but I think as a footballer you have got to have the right temperament.
If you can't perform in front of your own fans and there is a fear there then you have to look at yourself.
We work in a highly professional arena, coping with pressure is a massive part of a player's development and if we can't cope with that then somewhere down the line you will struggle.
On one final note I would like to mention the Reserves' result last week. It was a great result and there were a lot of stand out performances.
But two players that will undoubtedly have caught people's attention because of the goals they scored are Kieron Cadogan and Matthew Wright.
They are two promising youngsters but I don't think we will see them this year. I think we have enough youngsters who we have seen can be very inconsistent.
However, I am very aware of Cadogan in particular because I think he has the qualities of becoming a first team player.
He has got a terrific temperament and apart from Darren Ambrose, he has got the best touch in the club and can get goals from the wings and the middle.
But we have got to be careful not to swamp the first team with youngsters.
We have got an outstanding crop of youngsters, not only the ones on the verge of the first team now, but the ones underneath and it is important that we don't flood the first team with them because then you put a massive and unnecessary pressure on them.
What people have to remember is that when a youngster has talent they have to live with the responsibility of having talent.
People expect a performance every week and a young player can't produce every week, so their time spent in the first time has to be carefully considered.
But certainly on Saturday night one of the topics of conversation was about playing some of youngsters more and give them a lot more games than we anticipated because the defeat on Saturday was not the fault of any of our young players.
All the mistakes that were made were by the more experienced players; they cost us the game not the youngsters and the one thing we realised following Saturday's result is that the future of this club is with the youngsters more than ever before.
We only had one email this week to put to Mick. It was from Paul Fitton, who wrote:
Considering that during our play off run in the 07/08 season when 5''10 Clinton Morrison spearheaded our attack and we were forced not to punt aimless hoofs at his head and played the best football I've seen in my Palace supporting career, do we decide that pumping the ball up to a 6'4 target man and hoping he wins a flick on and lands at one of our players feet is the way forward?
No it is not the way forward and never has been. It is a fallacy. It is like saying Heskey should not be in the England team and Peter Crouch should not be in the Spurs team or Torres should not be in the Liverpool team. Size has not got anything to do with it.
If you have people like John Carew who can score headers and build up the play as well then you are fortunate, but the best strikers in the world have always been around 5'10".
The leading goalscorers in the world have all been under six foot. So if you are fortunate to have a Clinton Morrison who we have lost to a club who could offer him more money, there is nothing you can do about that in modern football.
Players move because of finance and Clinton moved purely for finance, Shefki Kuqi moved purely for finance. We just did not have the money to keep both of them.
And they both, irrespective of their two different styles, had good goal scoring records, but we just couldn't keep them.
But if there is a 5'10 striker who can score goals and it means changing our style of football then Neil is very adaptable to it then that will happen.
We have to remember that when we went to QPR and beat them in our first season we had Jamie Scowcroft, a 6ft 3, 6ft 4 centre forward and Clinton Morrison playing off him so it doesn't really matter what the size is it is capability of scoring goals you will always be wanted at football clubs, they are hard to find.
We are looking now. I went to a game last night to watch a 5'11 centre forward who, irrespective of his size, is a centre forward with a reputation and someone that we might get on loan with a bit of luck.
Our determination of getting good a striker will never cease. I have never spent more time on the road than ever before and Ronnie Jepson too has been watching strikers for us. Tonight he will be at a game looking at a player who is a different type of striker than I watched, but could be a possibility.
Mick's blog will continue throughout the season right here on cpfc.co.uk. Next week Mick will look back at the QPR and Derby fixtures as well as answering your questions.
If you want to raise an issue or have a question for Mick then send them in to info@cpfc.co.uk.
www.cpfc.co.uk/page/MickJonesBlogDetail/0,,10323~1797514,00.html