After our Selhurst disaster last season, what happened, and what does this tell us?

In this run-in, Arsenal scored 17, while in their run-in Palace scored 11.  Across the whole season Arsenal scored 61 to Palace’s 50.  So even though Arsenal’s last ten games make disappointing reading the fact is that the scoring rate was nevertheless higher in the last ten games than it was across the whole season.   Which is not to say we didn’t need it to be higher still, (hence the summer purchases) but the scoring was improving through the season, even though we would have liked better results.

Following on from this season-end, Crystal Palace have brought in four players…

Cheick Doucouré; a midfielder from Lens, and it is said Vieira has been watching him for some time.   The fee is said to be £18m.

Chris Richards; a 22 year old centre back from Bayern Munich: £8.5m

Sam Johnstone, a goalkeeper arriving on a free from West Bromwich.

Malcolm Ebiowei: an 18 year old winger from Derby County who came in for an undisclosed fee.

The Palace pre-season…

As far as I can tell Crystal Palace have played five pre-season.  They opened with a 3-1 away defeat to Manchester United, followed that with a 2-3 away win at Gillingham (who were relegated last season from League One to League Two), and then a 1-1 draw with Leeds United (which having seen them play last season, looks a seriously dangerous way to prepare for the new programme.  Maybe Patrick was looking to beef his team up for the new campaign.

After that it was a 0-3 away win over Queens Park Rangers, and finally a 4-2 home win over Montpellier.

Here’s a quick reminder of the Arsenal first-team preparations for the new campaign.