When you support a club that share the record number of relegations from the Premier League, it is probably no surprise that Crystal Palace fans have a reputation for pessimism. But is mid-September not a little too early to start researching journeys next season to Barnsley and Burton?
For my fellow Eagles fans who seem to believe that five defeats in our first five League matches has condemned us to near-certain relegation, I have a quiz question. Which Premier League club survived last season despite losing five matches in a row between October and November and taking only one point from a seven-match run in December and January? Answer: Crystal Palace.
Visits to Manchester City and Manchester United over the next eight days mean there is every likelihood that our present run will eventually be even worse than either of those sequences, but seasons are decided over 38 matches, not five or even seven.
While the worst start to a season by any team in Premier League history is not exactly a reason to start hanging out the bunting in Holmesdale Road, there are reasons to believe we might still get out of this mess.
For one thing, our tally of no points and no goals is not a fair reflection of the first five games.
We should have won at Burnley and the home defeats by Huddersfield and Southampton could both have been avoided had we not been so wasteful in front of goal.
The summer transfer window has left our squad seriously unbalanced yet we still have a group of players that must be the envy of some of those other clubs facing relegation battles. A line-up that includes men of the quality of Christian Benteke, Wilfried Zaha, Mamadou Sakho and Yohan Cabaye, not to mention top-notch loanees Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Timothy Fosu-Mensah, should be doing much better than this.
In Pictures | Crystal Palace vs Southampton | 16/09/2017
To get the best out of such talent, nevertheless, you clearly need the right manager and Steve Parish, the Palace chairman, has admitted his error in appointing Frank de Boer as Sam Allardyce’s successor. We never had the players capable of playing De Boer’s brand of possession football and it seems that the Dutchman’s man-management skills left much to be desired.
Parish, who in my book is still the best chairman Palace have ever had, at least acted swiftly in cutting his losses and appointing Roy Hodgson as De Boer’s replacement. Hodgson and his assistant, Ray Lewington, will hopefully get us playing the kind of football that should bring the best out of our squad: no-nonsense defending and swift counter-attacking.
The loss of Zaha to a knee injury on the opening day, was a big blow, but his return, hopefully in time for the visit of Chelsea after the Manchester matches, is a cause for optimism, as was Sakho’s assured performance in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday.
Nobody should underestimate the challenge ahead, but this team is not very different in personnel to the one that beat Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea last season.
I imagine few Palace fans are expecting anything from our next three fixtures, but did anybody expect us to lose our first three home games to Huddersfield, Swansea and Southampton?