After these sort of games over-reaction is an easy thing to fall in to. So I'll try and stay on the right side of rationality.
As I wrote in an earlier post Palace are not your usual relegation fodder kettle of fish. They are only in the bottom three having fallen foul of this stupid rule that deems it acceptable that something that happens in the boardroom can have a bearing on a competition which otherwise uses football matches as its way of determining the order of things. Therefore we shouldn't see this in quite the same way as losing at home to Peterborough.
After all, for 49.9% of the match we were the better team. I can't remember a more bold and effective first half performance. We hit the post, the bar and had the officials not been incompetent in the extreme would've had one, if not two penalties. Our defence went to sleep for a few seconds and as soon as you spotted the big figure of Stern John free in our 6 yard box it was obvious that Palace were going to score a very undeserved goal.
At half time one would expect the manager to say all the right things about keeping going, staying alert and generally encouraging his players to continue in the same vein and that something will eventually happen. I'm sure Malky did this. But he must accept that whatever it was he said it seriously didn't get through. He must find a way of ensuring that for the remaining 7 games we never again get a 45 minutes like the one we did when the players reemerged.
He must also realise his own responsibility in being able to change what's happening on the pitch. We appreciate he can't kick or header every ball but he could've acted far far earlier than he did and with much more impact in the second half. The time to act was after that second goal. It needed a big response that said we're not accepting this in the way GT did so famously all those years ago against Tranmere. Waiting until we were 3 down was akin to giving up. The crowds reaction to Danny Graham replacing Don Cowie spoke volumes through its muted response. None of us believed it was going to make a difference.
What we needed was an impact player, just as Middlesbrough had with Leroy Lita on Saturday. I know we have very limited options but what about Heidar? Unfortunately he's beginning to look like the slightly older footballer we all know he's become but don't want to believe. So rather than flogging him to death every game lets keep him back and bring him on for those grandstand finishes that I'm sure he still has the strength and energy to conjure up. Remember how he changed that game against Leicester? That was what we needed.
Its been much said already but why have Ryan Noble on loan if we aren't using him, particularly in a situation like Tuesday night. Otherwise just what situation have we got him in on an emergency loan for, when we're a couple of goals up to come on for a cameo? The only reason I can think that he hasn't featured is that he actually isn't as good as Malky was led to believe. If that is the case then a serious word needs to be had with whoever scouted him because we really don't need to be looking after another teams young kid at such a crucial stage of the season.
The worst bit about Tuesday was the reaction of Palace when we finally did score. They were worried, really worried even though they only had seven minutes to hang on. They didn't believe they could do it. Unfortunately neither did we.
