January 17 2010

Victor Moses

Palace travelled down to the west country and, after a dogged fight, returned to South London with three points. Jamesey was somewhat pleased about that.

Due to the weather and other unrelated matters, I watched my last CPFC game at Selhurst against Barnsley (1-1, Dec 19).

I won't be seeing another match until Peterborough visit us on Jan 30 so, but for the life-saving effect of Palace Player, I would be experiencing football withdrawal symptoms of summer off-season magnitude.

I must say I admired the heroism of the several hundred away Palace supporters who travelled a long way to witness a hard-fought game against Plymouth Argyle where the sodden conditions made good football a non-starter.

According to the Palace Player commentator, we were the better side through most of the game and deserved our 0-1 victory although we did appear to ease off in the second half.

However despite Argyle's best efforts we clung tenaciously onto the slender lead provided by Victor Moses's first half goal. How vitriolic was the Green Army's barracking when Victor was subbed and walked to the dug-out. Come on, fellers, he's only an ickle lad...

And, although the commentator seemed to do a competent job on the whole, his statement that Argyle had been awarded a penalty in the dying seconds of injury time undoubtedly took a few more weeks off my life expectancy.

Of course, he then changed his mind and told us it was only a free kick on the edge

of the box, not desperately good news anyway.

Only when the Pilgrims were unable to capitalise on the advantage was I calm enough to retrieve my foot from the splintered matchwood of the cabinet I had been kicking.

The result leaves us with 37 points, eighth in the table and only a point from the play-off positions.

After our FA Cup visit to Wolves (Jan 23) our next league game is a trip to St James's Park to play league leaders Newcastle Utd (Jan 27).

On the same day a Crystal Palace FC winding up order application brought by HM Revenue and Customs is due to be heard in London.

I am told by people with far more expertise than myself in the workings of tax and finance that this is not necessarily the end of the world as we know it, but a means for the taxman to stake a claim if we go into administration.

The figure owed is small by football standards, £1.2m, so the sale of Victor Moses, almost certainly to come soon, should easily cover this and far more.

So even if we have to trade in our star players, the primary aim, as the Old Warrior, Winston Churchill, would have said, is to "keep b*ggering on"...

Email Jamesey with your comments to jevans3704@aol.com

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