Dickie

I don't get riled up by people criticising online, it's more that I just really can't understand why anyone would want to. Things are going fucking brilliantly by any standards, but especially in the context of the recent history of the club. We're flying, we've got a top manager and a squad of players who, seemingly to a man, are completely motivated to play for us. It's just mind boggling to me that people would appear to take such relish in criticising things rather than enjoying these good days. Colback's not great but he tries his best every time he plays, and whether people like it or not he has actually played a part in getting to the top of the league - he's done a decent job most of the times he's played this season in my opinion, albeit helped significantly by playing next to Shelvey. It's not his fault he's here, and it's certainly not Rafa's, and he'll be replaced at the earliest opportunity, but while he's here and part of a squad that is pulling towards promotion I just can't understand the vitriol. What does annoy me is our support at SJP - there's more and more huffing and puffing... it's something that has been there to some degree for as long as I can remember, but while you could understand it at times when we had players who clearly couldn't be arsed, playing for incompetent managers, it just doesn't make any sense at the moment with the team doing so well.

Certainly is, loads of good pubs

I'll see what I can do

Going to this one, first away of the season as I've been busy and short on cash recently. Looking forward to it - I quite like St Andrews and Brum in general

Aye it's class, not sure what my favourite album of theirs is. I used to listen to The Song Remains the Same a lot in my teens, there's some brilliant versions on there, especially No Quarter, which I never liked that much on Houses of the Holy.

Good post HF. Mbemba looked very iffy against Blackburn, including a couple of Bramble-esque moments. That's normal for someone who hasn't been playing and I like him as a defender - he looked one of our better player last season, but centre defence isn't a worry at all for me - Lascelles and Clarke with Darlow behind plenty good enough so far

OK but I have a different impression. I think he's not as good at it as Gayle - that was the point of my post. On the other hand it might be the case that Mitrovic has more potential to develop into a better Premier League player in time, due to his size.

My favourite Led Zep song

I haven't seen much in Mitrovic to suggest he's better at scoring from crosses than Gayle, despite his size. I think he has potential and I like his enthusiasm, and I hope he will develop into a target man one day (sooner rather than later), but at the moment he doesn't play like one at all. Gayle is the better at receiving the ball with his back to goal and holding onto it, even though he's smaller. Mitro really hasn't got the hang of hold-up play at all, but I think that often comes with experience for taller strikers (the likes of Quinn, Crouch etc, even Shola, got better at it in their late 20s and 30s as they worked out how to use their size). Mitro has scored goals to be fair to him, but from memory they've been similar to those that Gayle has scored - he's more of a like for like replacement at the moment as far as I can see, just slower and not as good.

Well put

I suppose it is but I just can't get my head around why anyone would want to at the moment. Things are going better than most of us could ever have hoped. We all hoped we'd do well this season but if we're honest there were a lot of unknowns and uncertainties. We are fucking flying. Therefore, criticising, especially in the really over the top way that some are doing it (not you Fish) is really the last thing on my mind and the negativity of some people just amazes me. About the likes of Colback: yes, they aren't up to much but the reason he's here is nowt to do with Benitez - it's the fault of previous managers and Ashley's previous mistakes. That's in the past now. The club is unrecogniseable to what it was this time last year, or at any time in the last 10 years, and I'll just never get my head around why people would be so keen to criticise. Colback will be getting binned off and replaced by better at the earliest opportunity. We've had one window under Benitez and things are going very, very well.

Absolutely. It just amazes me that people would want to criticise at all at the moment. Things are going really, really well.

Fuck me, what has our support come to. We've won more than anyone else, we're at the top of the league, we've played many teams completely off the park this season and have scored more than anyone in the division and have an amazing goal difference. We've got a manager who has managed to change the face of the whole club in about half a year, with only one transfer window to work in (which itself was compromised because he hadn't got his own future sorted out til late on) and people are still going into meltdown and criticising him. We've been a fucking shambles for fucking years - things are going brilliantly at the moment, despite having lost a handful of games. We should be enjoying this and getting behind a team and manager who are putting absolutely everything into getting promoted. Honestly I've got no time for anyone having a go at Benitez, or the players for that matter, after how well they've done this season so far.

I think we're still going up, no bother. This is a relatively sticky patch and but we're still the best team in this league. For most of the game today we looked exactly what we are - exceptionally well coached and with a good attitude throughout the squad. Unfortunately we couldn't nick the first goal which would have drawn Blackburn out and probably led to a 3 or 4 goal win. Shelvey is obviously a big miss and I'm hoping for a high quality signing or two in Jan to give us a boost. I agree about Perez mind, he's been stinking for a while.

I would have thought Palace could aim higher than Hippo Heed tbh. They seem to have cash to spend, already have a fair few talented players, and are in London which seems to be more attractive to foreigners and their missuses than the provinces. From our point of view they are a non-entity of a club as others have stated, but that wont matter to prospective managers keen to make their mark in the Premier League. If I was a Palace supporter I'd be gutted to end up with Allardyce.

That record is fucking shocking and totally indefensible. Hes had some good players there as well - the likes of Puncheon and Zaha have looked very handy whenever Ive seen them play. A bit like the season after we finished 5th, it was frustrating that we had some quality players on paper but pretty much none of them seemed to be playing to their potential

Well what brilliant news. This is gratifying in the extreme. I didn't think he was going to get sacked this year - I had a feeling they'd get a win against Watford then go on a trademark spunky run for 5-6 games to get them to mid table safety, possibly with the help of a good signing or two in Jan a la the sissoko et al window. I think it was Howay who totally summed him up in one blistering post about a year ago. Some of the media seem to have finally caught onto the truth about him being essentially a pretty shite manager, but it will be interesting to see if any of them at all go as far as suggesting that we might not have been deluded/unrealistic/demanding after all. I doubt it, but we know the truth and now so do the palace supporters.

I think you've nailed it there. There'll be plenty of people getting up on their high horses even though they don't know what was said. Having said that, it sounds like there must have been something that at least could have been construed as a racial element to it, and he is therefore a prize idiot at the very least. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt until the truth comes out and hope it is a storm in a tea cup, managed in typical incompetent fashion by the FA.

It is greed like - that's what's got football to this point. Many clubs manage to survive or even prosper in this environment, but the mackems haven't. The reason they haven't is due to mismanagement, as you say, but the reason the vicious circle that MF described yesterday exists at all is greed.

Money really has fucked the game. There's no pleasure to be gained from this. There used to be a simple pleasure gained from beating them or knowing they were hopeless, but as a support they don't deserve their club to be on the brink of oblivion as a result of pure greed. I wouldn't want them to go into administration... We might sneer at them because by geographical coincidence a large part of their catchment happens to comprise some of the more backwards communities in the UK, but their financial predicament could just have easily happened to us.

Aye it's worked out well for us, as it doesn't seem to be affecting his performances while he's waiting for the hearing. We've got 4 games between now and then that we could do with taking minimum 9 points from, so good to have him available for them in case he gets done for this charge.

Aye that's it. Looking at the amount of goals they've scored I don't think we'll have a problem scoring against these. The Blackburn game was just weird - the whole side was completely flat from the start, I think we'll put that behind us and win comfortably on Friday.

They certainly are, consistently releasing an album full of perfect melodic guitar pop every few years. The albums are nowhere near as grungy as Bandwagonesque was.