This was a game overshadowed by 2 events for me. One was the untimely and very sad passing of promising centre forward Dylan Tombides from a 3 year battle with cancer. The other was meeting with a good friend of mine who starts his chemo this week, after being diagnosed with some serious Cancer complications out of the blue resulting in massive operations less then 24 hrs post diagnoses. The words of Shankly went through my head, and i will have the disagree with the great man this time.
Dylan’s number 38 has been retired by the club and they held a very moving minutes applause before the start of the game witnessed by his brother and father.
The game to me was going to be a drawn out 0-0, that would secure league survival for both teams, and started as such. Sam set out his usual shocking formation, and Pulis didn’t do much better. But the Eagles seemed to have the upper hand as they were more lively up front even if it meant Yannick Bolasie diving all over the place like Tom Daly after a night on the piss. But WHU had possession, and outside of Andy Carroll getting a couple of chances, and one falling to the ever depressing Diame, neither team was going to break the deadlock.
The second half was more of the same, but WHU were retreating more and more into their shells, inviting Palace on. This meant more action in our box. Eventually the inevitable happened when Pablo Armero tripped Cameron Jerome in the box. Jedinak took the pen well, and that sealed the game.
There were shouts for penatlies on both sides, and that just about sums up the quality of the game all round.
So Palace are now safe, and we are not with 3 tricky games to go, West Brom (A), Totts (H) and Man City away on the last day. Other results will keep us up I imagine, so we must look to next season. I watched Sam this morning on Sky talking about improving the squad, but the reception he got at the end of the game (again), points to the fact that he probably wont be there to improve anything.
Last up, Palace fans, superb all day, plenty of noise and really got behind their team.
Mrben09 