The Crystal Palace chairman, Steve Parish, visited the home dressing room at Selhurst Park to address the club’s under-achieving players after the side’s latest crushing defeat, by Sunderland, with Sam Allardyce instructing his squad to report to the training ground at 7am on Sunday as he seeks to instigate an upturn.
Parish went into the changing rooms with Allardyce’s blessing after the 4-0 reverse, a ninth home defeat of the season, to impress on the team the sense of frustration being experienced by the supporters. Fans had bellowed “You’re not fit to wear the shirt” after Palace conceded three goals in three minutes just before half-time against the division’s bottom club, with one furious supporter entering the playing area to confront the centre-half Damien Delaney as the teams departed at the break. That fan was restrained by stadium security guards and later arrested.
Although the Palace hierarchy in no way condone fans coming on to the pitch, there is empathy in the boardroom at the meagre fare the home support have endured over recent times. The south London club have won only twice at Selhurst Park this season and four times since December 2015 – and only 22 times in 69 games since gaining promotion in 2013 – and have slumped to 19th in the division, with Allardyce having won only once in seven top-flight games since his appointment just before Christmas. Palace were the biggest spenders in the Premier League last month as they reacted to a dismal first half of the campaign which had prompted Alan Pardew’s dismissal.
Parish, a Palace fan who was a member of the consortium who bought the club out of administration in 2010, made an impassioned speech to the squad and made clear their performances of late, a win at Bournemouth aside, have been unacceptable. The players would normally undertake a light warm-down session 24 hours after a match but Allardyce, shocked at the capitulation to a Sunderland team who had not won away since early November, called them in early on Sunday morning. Footage of the latest dismal defensive display was picked apart at the club’s training ground, with the manager now to go back to basics in the hope he can spark a revival.
There is exasperation that the performance disintegrated virtually from the moment the visitors took the lead, a slump indicative of a team utterly shorn of confidence. “It was all about fear when the first goal went in,” said Allardyce. “The fear overtook them and they lost control. Particularly when you go a goal down, once fear takes over, the mind gets confused and we saw the players doing a lot of stuff we didn’t envisage. The frailty showed in their defending in the first half and the four goals. The players are struggling in their home form. I’ve got to get rid of that fear and get them playing much, much better.
“I saw it against Swansea and again [against Sunderland]. Two teams below us: we haven’t performed anything near where we know we can, and lost both. I think we’re bottom of the league in home points gained, and ninth in the league from points gained away from home. It’s not down to the fans; the fans don’t place them under a huge amount of pressure, compared to other clubs I’ve managed. They want to support and get behind them. I apologise to them for coming and seeing what they saw in that first half.”
Palace will hope to have three of their new signings – Jeffrey Schlupp, Mamadou Sakho and Luka Milivojevic were all absent this weekend – available for Saturday’s trip to Stoke City, with fears over an injury to Scott Dann potentially allayed. The captain had limped away late on against Sunderland, leaving the home side down to 10 men as they had already used their three substitutes, but is understood to have suffered a tweak to his hamstring rather than anything more serious.
David Moyes denied he was superstitious but admitted the well-documented fact that Sunderland had never won a Premier League match with Jack Rodwell in their starting lineup had crossed his mind before the victory at Palace. Rodwell’s run of 39 starts without a win had stretched back almost four years to his time as a Manchester City player but came to an end at Selhurst Park.
“It has actually crossed my mind a few times,” the manager said. “I think if you are a manager it would be stupid not to look at that. Jack’s actually played well in recent weeks and today I said to him: ‘It’s about time you started to take a grip of games. You’re not a boy any more, get over it. It’s about time you started to show that you’re a top player and you need to start grasping games because I don’t think you’ve been doing that much.’ Recently, he’s done better. He’s comfortable on the ball and we want him to take more responsibility and help make us play.”
Rodwell has been dogged by injury problems since moving to Sunderland and although he started Saturday’s match, he could not finish it. The 25-year-old limped off with a hamstring injury.