Palace March On In The FA Cup

Yesterday Palace managed to put their Premier League troubles to one side and pick up a win at Selhurst Park, putting us through to the fifth round of the FA Cup for the second year running.

Stoke made considerable changes to their side for yesterday’s clash with Palace – only three or four of their regular side started yesterday but nonetheless it was a team largely filled with premier league experience. By contrast Palace went with what was probably the strongest side we could have named given our continued injuries, signalling Pardew’s desire to go far in this competition.

The biggest talking point of the game came in the form of Marc Wilson’s questionable challenge on Fraizer Campbell in the first half. He was punished with a yellow card and at the time even the Stoke fans thought he could count himself a little fortunate to have not seen red and on watching it back my opinion hasn’t changed. There was only one Stoke player that even had a chance of getting himself between Campbell and the goal and even that is perhaps a stretch, on another day he could well have been dismissed but thankfully for Palace it had no bearing on the game

As far as the game goes both teams blew chances with Xerdan Shaqiri proving particularly wasteful in very good positions. While some better finishing from Stoke could have changed the outcome of this game quite dramatically this wasn’t just a Palace smash-and-grab. Ledley fired over from close range, Campbell drew a wonderful save from Haugaard and of course Zaha produced a wonderful piece of skill to beat the Stoke centre-half before calmly slotting it into the back of the net

New signing Emmanuel Adebayor wasn’t in the squad today and it remains to be seen just how long it’ll take for him to regain match sharpness. Wickham’s three match ban puts even more pressure on our need for our Adebayor to be fit and while it’s been reported that he’s kept himself in top condition in anticipation of his return to the Premier League it remains to be seen how quickly he can challenge for a first team spot.

Parish has spoken this week about potentially getting a couple more deals done and who this could be is anyone’s guess. Pato’s arrival at Chelsea could open the door for Remy’s departure but aside from that nobody knows, it will just be a case of waiting to see who comes in and out of the door on deadline day.. There have been persistent rumours of Gayle departing however his reported suitors, Norwich, have just signed Bamford on loan until the end of the season suggesting he may not be leaving for Norwich. However his persistent absence due to ‘injury’ could also be indicative of a potential move on Monday but we will have to wait and see on that front.

Yesterday’s performance and result was encouraging and could potentially signal the start of something good for Palace. Our league form is on the slide and if our poor run of results continues then mid-table mediocrity may be all we can hope for out of this campaign. If this is the case then the FA cup could represent a real opportunity for success this season and this far we have managed acquire good wins amidst poor premier league performances which is encouraging. Stoke are a good side and although their mid-week exploits undoubtedly had an effect we came away with the win which is all that matters. After this weekend’s win we’re just two games away from a semi-final date at Wembley and that would be a dream come true but to get that far we need a bit of luck, starting with the avoidance Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal in the next round.