'4th Place- what's it going to take?' is the title of this thread. Well, for a start we could do without the manager throwing all his principles out the window just because we were facing the mighty Palace. What happened to the balanced line-up, the requirement for team work over individual skills, and for patience when trying to work chances. Let's face it, that line up was bizarre. I'm not denying that on another day it might have worked -- but it was so out of character for a Martinez side and it makes you wonder what made RM go down this route rather than stick with the usual gameplan. Surely it wasn't just because CP have a strong and well drilled defence and he thought we needed more individual enterprise to create chances. Did he over-think on his team selection and end up confusing himself? Was he trying to appease Mirallas and Derlofeu, and the late injury to McCarthy presented him the chance to play both? Or were they already pencilled in and McCarthy's place went to McGeady? Then again, what was the reason for omitting Naismith, other than to continue his alternating between Naismith, Barkley and Osman.
Aside from a bright first 15 minutes it was clear that the balance was missing but the only HT change was to remove Delofeu. He was poor but at least he was visible, more than could be said for Mirallas, who amazingly was to be left on and the much more involved Mcgeady later taken off.
I love Bobby but this was not one of his better days, and I'm just left wondering why he changed his approach for this game.
PS - I like the passing game across the back, but could we not find an alternative way to progress the move once Distin is in possession? Too often he's left to try and do too much with the possession and he's not up to it.