Match Reports & action photos.

the wrong attitude
Sometimes one guesses whether football games are prepared according to the name of the team you are playing against or according to the actual players of the team you are playing against.

Nine out of eleven players in the Arsenal line-up were reserves, some of them extremely green (Vernazza, Upson); compared to that, Crystal Palace's situation (four key players being absent), looked pretty rosy.

In spite of that, we approached the game as if we were playing against the likes of Bergkamp, Wright, Seaman, Overmars and Co., we were awed by Arsenal shirts more than by Arsenal players and consequently we sat back waiting for the opponents to attack us.

It's pretty clear to me that this tactic is not going to work, the best result you can get out of it is a scoreless draw and the chances that the opponents, piling up the pressure, will finally breach your rearguard are very high as it was sadly shown on Saturday.

o change for the better or for the worse?
Do you think that the changes made by Steve Coppell during the game were well thought trough or were desperation moves?

Bent for Smith: this was a reasonable substitution, at least on the paper. Smith was continuing his personal campaign to persuade any Crystal Palace supporter that they should regret the release of Kevin Muscat and therefore the sooner he was off the better. But why was Marcus Bent played as a wide midfield player and not as a striker? The player is still extremely naïve and immature, is often caught in possession and to lose the ball in midfield is way too dangerous than to lose it upfront. In addition to that, the number of crosses delivered by the former Brentford player (zero) is self-explanatory.

Tuttle upfront? Sure, Bruce Dyer was having the usual nightmare game, but to play a centre-back, who is incidentally out of action since September, as your main striker, is utterly ridiculous.

I believe that at this point in time the only alteration that would make sense and that would give a morale boost to a disheartened team is the change of the manager himself.
Steve Coppell is not completely responsible for the failure of the team, he has obviously had hard luck with the injuries, but he has made several bad mistakes and he has got to pay for them:

• he has signed a number of players that are not Premiership material (at least Smith, Fullarton, Bent, Zohar and Emblen fall into this category) or even worse he has been forced to accept some of them. The manager should in fact have the complete technical supervision of the deals being finalised and only the financial details should be left to the chairman and to the directors. If this is not the case, Coppell should have voiced his concern long time ago;
• the substitutions he has made during the games have never significantly altered the outcome of the match, on the other hand they have often been unsuccessful;
• his general approach to the Premiership has been one of extreme caution and of stubborn defensivism.

Pier-Luigi Giganti

Pier's match Stats

Simon Gleave