Crystal Palace fans were filling out the Football Transfer Tavern on FA Cup Final day and after just missing out on the Cup, our punters will be hoping to have more reasons to celebrate this season.
Alan Pardew has been criticised in the past, but will look to show this season what he can do as a manager and attempt to get Palace up the table.
After signing Andros Townsend, James Tomkins and Steve Mandanda he has certainly given himself a chance, although he could still do with a real goalscorer.
The landlord runs through THREE things that you can expect to see from Alan Pardew’s Crystal Palace side this season. Do you agree with these expectations and how do you think Crystal Palace will fare this season?
Great wingplay
Andros Townsend has been added to the already brilliant contingent of Crystal Palace wingers.
He joins the likes of Wilfried Zaha, Yannick Bolasie, Jason Puncheon and Bakary Sako in the side.
No matter who is playing on the wings, supporters can expect to see them tearing down the wing and attacking the opposition full backs and either cutting in to score themselves or get the ball into the box.
The only trouble is that they don’t have a clinical striker to play the ball into who will score 15 goals or more a season.
Solid defence
With Steve Mandanda and James Tomkins joining a backline that already has Scott Dann, Joel Ward, Martin Kelly and others Crystal Palace should be very strong in defence this season.
They will also have Joe Ledley, Mile Jedinak or James McArthur in the midfield offering them protection.
This is going to make Crystal Palace very hard to break down and they shouldn’t concede too many goals this season, if Alan Pardew’s tactics aren’t too open.
Set Piece specialists
With Yohan Cabaye in the side, Crystal Palace will be deadly from set pieces.
He has a brilliant delivery from free kicks and corners and Scott Dann, Mile Jedinak, Connor Wickham and other aerial threats in the side mean that his balls will be put to good use and could result in goals for the team.
Mile Jedinak, Andros Townsend and others are also capable of scoring free kicks, so even if Cabaye isn’t playing Palace will still be dangerous from dead ball situations.
