Sorry, but Crystal Palace are next.
We’ve had a few “Oh shit. not them”s over the years. Most involve teams in red with supporters who have no idea of how to support and urn up in places where they shouldn’t be, making a lot of noise and a bit too much fuss.
They usually beat us as well, alhough sometimes they make it even worse by letting s thinknwe might finally beat them. There’s never any chance of that happening with Sunday’s opponents. The Kings of Oh Shit Not Them, the Emperors of Do We Have To? The undisputed champions of Get It Out The Way. Crystal Bastard Palace.
Not for them the occasional drama of letting us have a two-goal lead before crushing the hopes and dreams. Nor would they ever rely on a fresh from the Academy schoolboy to perform the ritual embarrassment. Palace always look like they’ll beat us. They don’t bother wiith big names out injured or kids who look like Pele once before disappearing into the Moldovan fourth division. They suck the life out of our team and our gameplan and they beat us. Not every time; it just feels like it.
Then there’s their supporters. If they want to be ultras and play with fireworks let them go to Italy and with a bit of luck they’ll have their hands burnt off. It’s a bit suspicious how they can get tickets together for matches at Wembley that never happened, smuggle in enough pyrotechnics to launch a medium-sized revolution and bring offensive banners into their ground with no comeback.
But it’s all going to be different on Sunday. For a start they’ll have hardly anybody here. You could be sympathetic about the way they’ve been pissed about with the kick-off time but it’s Crystal Palace so serve them right.
Then there’s the match itself. No fuss, no mess, our claret and blue warriors are going to make up for the bad run by hammering Palace back to the faceless, windswept hellhole they came from.
