Con

Peru have left their most established names at home and will be breaking in some kids.

Wages won't keep going up ad infinitum. You can bet on that. Some kind of wage cap rule will be introduced. Not directly, that would be illegal. Clubs total spending on wages might be restricted. This would force clubs to question the cost/benefit to the team of playing one member of it loads of money and the rest peanuts, or paying all players roughly the same wage. My guess is the top wage in this structure will be at whatever the current wage rise tops out at.

Joel Ward is that good - easily good enough for a starting spot at one of the top 7. Crystal Palace fans rate him their best player. Last season he played left back 12 times, right back 18 times. He actually performed slightly better at left back than right back. He got two assists from left back and his whoscored rating was 7.4 vs 7.3. You might be merely claiming Pulis is an "effective manager" but my point is that there are so many people in the media who overrate him. Presumably you don't believe he should manage the England national team - players like Adam Lallana and Ross Barkley?

As an attacking player it is all linked. Pulis doesn't know how to play attacking players. They even "signed" Tom Ince during the winter transfer window. £1m that cost them. Hardly played him and he didn't make an impression on the club. Not better than Vlaar but they would have been more solid with Vlaar than Clark or Baker. As I said, we are a club that builds for the future. Clark and Baker are the future. They need experience, and when they get experience I believe they have the talent to be better than the already experienced Crystal Palace defenders. Joel Ward vs Bertrand? Joel Ward.

Because Pulis took over a team that had 3 points in 10 games? Because Pulis had them finishing comfortable and had he been there the whole season, in the top half? Because Steve Bruce nearly got relegated? Because the Palace squad is incredibly shit and by far the worst on paper in the league? Oh and Hul beat 1 Premier League side (a Sunderland team in awful form at the time) to get to the Final. No, Pulis took over a team that had 7 points in 12 games. You keep forgetting Keith Millen was care-taker manager for 3 games (L, D, W), before Pulis took the reins. Also, I challenge your view the Palace squad is "incredibly shit." Delaney and Gabbidon are very experienced defenders with international experience. Joel Ward is a great defender. They were all injured for a time during the first 10 games. Had they played for Villa, they would have helped our defence whether Pulis was managing us or not. They might not be the most talented but they have so much experience, which counts for a lot. Now, I wouldn't want Villa to sign these players because at 32 and 34 they are too old and we are a club that builds for the future, but I'm convinced those centre-halves are far more capable defenders than you give credit due to the amount of experience they have.

And Jay Rodriguez is on the way in! I've seen no rumors about Sir Tackle Goals but I think the Guardian said they're already after Lallana. He's injured ACL. Will have to be the winter transfer window, if he's back scoring by then. Lallana and Erikson would be a good midfield. Can they play at the same time?

What games last season were an example of this? They only lost 12 games. They lost 3-1 away against West Ham. Didn't lose against Stoke (D, D) or Palace (W, W).

The argument is not that Tony Pulis does not deserve any compliments as manager this season. It is simply that he is overrated. The compliments he has gotten are excessive in proportion to the achievement. You'd thought he'd won something. Palace is not the only promoted team to have retained their place in the Premier League this season. Hull is the other. Bruce made Hull hard to beat and after the winter transfer window got them scoring goals. He even took them to the final of the FA Cup. Now that's an achievement, yet nobody is talking about Bruce in the same terms as Pulis. Let's make a comparison with groundsmen. A great groundsman mows all sorts of impressive patterns into the turf. Doesn't need to do that but it looks great and the audience enjoys it. If Tony Pulis was a groundsman he'd still be using one of these.

I don't believe you. Win win ocassionally under Lambert. I said the defenders are old, experienced and internationals. That counts for a lot. They could be young, not especially talented, and have no international experience.

Remember Gabbidon and Delaney are very experienced players. Internationals and 34 and 32 years old respectively. Experience counts for a lot, especially when the players aren't especially talented.

And Jay Rodriguez is on the way in!

So you'd have had Pulis at Villa over Lambert? Palace had better players than you give credit. Delaney and Gabbidon are regular internationals and very experienced - 32 and 34. Joel Ward is The Next Big Thing. That's a good defence - when they're fit. Holloway didn't have them when they were fit. Pulis did. That explains part of the difference in results. Jedinak is another very experienced international who proved very powerful defensive midfielder for the Premier League. Lambert was rumoured to be after him over the transfer window last summer so he was always going to be playing in the Premier League. That's a strong defensive core to the team. Add one goal, and you get 1-0 wins, which Pulis did. Great. Well, okay. A genius manager would have got them scoring more than 33 goals. Pulis had the talent to get Palace scoring goals. Didn't know how to use it. Inept.

I don't think Pulis did any better a job than Lambert did given the various crises at Villa. I would not say Pulis was a better manager this season than Pelegrini, Rodgers, Mourinho, Pochettino, and Martinez. I would not have wished Pulis on Stoke or Hull either and Sunderland didn't need him. If you want remarkable, how about the job Poyet, getting results against Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea when he needed them? In terms of performance I would not have had Pulis at Villa ahead of at least 9 managers (the 9th being Tim Sherwood).

Do you disagree Keith Millen turned around Palace's form before Pulis got involved with the players? A 0-0 draw against Everton and then the 1-0 win against Hull in his final game as care-taker manager. Two clean sheets and 4 points. Millen set the trend with the available players, Pulis continued it. My criticism is not that Pulis did a "good job" it is that he is "overrated." Doing a "good job" does not make you a genius - as some people apparently think.

You have to remember Palace's form in the early games wasn't helped by injuries to their key defenders: Joel Ward and their experienced international centre halves, Delaney and Gabbidon. During the run of 10 games when they lost 9 and won 1, the three played together just 5 times, including for the time they won. By the time Pulis got to Palace they were fit again, and so was Mariappa, who had Premier League experience with Watford and Reading and who missed all 5 of the games the others didn't miss. We know from Villa how easily results go to pot when your best defenders are out.

He also had experienced players and good let us say advanced "scouting" about the likely line-up and team his side were going to play. It's a shame the managerial performances of Hughes (Stoke), Bruce (Hull) and Poyet (Sunderland) get overlooked in all the Palace nonsense. Maybe there is a London team effect that is amplifying Pulis's media coverage.

Between Holloway and Pulis Palace were managed by Keith Millen. He turned the form around before Pulis took over, culminating in the season defining 0-1 away at Hull.

Don't forget Joel Ward a left-back destined for one of the big sides. Jason Puncheon played at his peak this season. They also spent £6 million on Dwight Gayle who is Defoe-like excellent. That Scottish forward I can't remember his name now, had him back for the final games, looks Premier League class. Also had Tom Ince on loan second half of season who at least added competition to the squad. Plus Jedinak and Speroni, that's top quality he had playing for him. Many of his also-rans had a lot of experience, so it's not like he had to field a bunch of kids. If you play attractive football that doesn't mean you have to out-play the opposition. Wigan won the FA Cup under Martinez. Swansea won the League Cup last year. Many "smaller" clubs have shown you can play attractive footie against the top sides and win. Southampton the best of them this year, if you don't include Everton.

Selling Johnny Williams to Swansea for 3m is like Pulis taking over at Aston Villa and then ostracising and selling Grealish to Sunderland. Travesty. Surely a half-way decent manager should be able to incorporate his great talent into the side. That he cannot suggests he is a manager who only has a Plan A. That's nowhere near good enough for international football. Actually, the idea of Pulis managing England still sounds ridiculous to me. But I'm worried about the excessive praise that he is getting in the media - and I'm not the only one who has noticed.

I wanted to respond to this post in the Paul Lambert thread, but it would take the thread off topic. So I post here. Good spot. There is a media campaign in his favour, even though the Palace form had turned-around under his care-taker predecessor before he got the job. Do you think there is an agenda in the media for Pulis to take over as England manager after the World Cup? Hope not. I really don't want Pulis as England manager, not with the exciting new golden generation of talent that is coming through. Personally, he's probably a great guy. He runs the London marathon doesn't he? But before we call Pulis a genius we need to judge him not just on results but on the kind of football his team plays. Is getting results with crap football as skilful in managerial terms as failing to get results but reaching mid-table with exciting football? No. A manager who gets results with shit football is IMO worse than a manager who fails to do better with attacking football. In ice-skating terms, attacking football is a triple-axel into a backwards one footed-landing. It's hard to get right. Fat boy defender, boot-and-hoof football is much easier to get right. It's just a standing jump with the splits. Let's call the manager who plays attacking football Mark Hughes (who is Welsh so probably not in the tabloid frame for the post-Hodgson England job) and the manager who plays crap football Tony Pulis. A manager who succeeds to mid-table with rubbish football is actually the equivalent of a manager who gets his team relegated playing good football.

if it's Pochettino then expect Spurs to buy Jay Rodriguez in the winter transfer window.

Actually they won the shield. Man City won the cup. We got knocked out by Sunderland.

What did he end up with? Goals & assists? 6 goals I think, not sure about assists though. Great stuff, bulk up bit by bit and it'll make a huge difference Januzaj isn't bulky. Not really a good thing for a winger's speed and agility.

Actually, now that David Moyes is engaging in bar room brawls he might jump at the chance to manage Villa, no matter what happens with the owner - he needs to get his reputation back on track. That's if he still has the hunger for management. It would be familiar territory to what he was doing at Everton in terms of budget and fan expectation.

Malky Mackay.