To survive in this league you need to put back to back wins together. It was a great comeback against Brighton and it would have been fantastic to follow that up at Selhurst Park, but sadly it wasn’t to be. A result is only as good as your next game, so even if we’d managed to get a point it would have at least carried on that confidence. Palace is never an easy place to go but the lads will be disappointing with the performance. Saying that, I think if Aleksandar Mitrović scores that early header then that changes everything. Matches can hinge on little moments, and if that one had gone our way then I’m sure we would have got something from it. We saw an example of that in our favour last season at home to Leeds when Marcus Bettinelli made a brilliant save to keep the score at 1-0, and then seconds later we scored again. It really is fine margins sometimes.
We know Roy Hodgson so we know what Crystal Palace are about; they’re going to put men behind the ball and try and hit us on the counter with the speedy players they’ve got. That’s something they do so well, especially at home. And when they get that first goal they had a lead to protect, which Roy’s sides are usually pretty good at doing. Whenever you watch a Hodgson team, you can see that every player knows his job, every players knows their role in each scenario.
We got the two new lads through the door on Thursday, and hopefully the addition of Håvard Nordtveit and Lazar Marković will freshen up the squad. Sometimes when you get a player in January, it can galvanise a squad midway through the season. I remember when I was at Portsmouth and we signed Andrés D’Alessandro on January deadline day and he just lifted everyone. Fresh blood can do that for a squad, and hopefully it’s the same for us now.
Everyone has been impressed with the job Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has done since taking over at Manchester United. He’s gone in and got everyone on side, the players all seem to have massive respect for him and what he did there as a player. I hope he ends up getting the job full-time. They’re right back in the mix for a Champions League spot, so they’re going to be coming into our game high on confidence, but we’re the home side and we need to set about them, make it difficult for them. Claudio will have been working on a gameplan that he thinks can stop United.
We showed against Tottenham that we can match the big boys at the Cottage. That’s the good thing about the Premier League, anybody can beat anybody on their day. If we’d have taken our chances against Spurs then we would have won the game, so we need to make sure we’re clinical and put away any openings we create on Saturday. If you squander chances up top, it then puts more pressure on the defence, so hopefully we’ll have learnt our lesson from the Spurs match.
Speaking of Solskjaer, I remember him scoring against us in a fairly eventful game at Loftus Road. It was our second season in the Prem and we drew 1-1, but we should have won. We won a late penalty and Fabien Barthez was doing all his mind games, banging his studs on the posts etcetera as Steed Malbranque was waiting patiently, and after an eternity he ended up saving the kick. I was still surprised that Steed missed, though, because nothing ever seemed to phase him. He was ice cold. I remember his first training session he nutmegged about five players, so everyone wanted to kick him up in the air! His facial expression never changed, he was so damn cool, so I was shocked when he missed that penalty.
Even though we didn’t win that game, getting a point against a team like that is why you want to be in the Premier League, testing yourself against the best. All the effort and hard work you put into getting promoted, that’s why you do it. You want to produce your best against the best players. That 1-1 draw, I was obviously playing in midfield which meant I was up against Scholes, Veron, Giggs and Beckham, so I’m up for it before a ball has been kicked. I’m sure they weren’t as excited to go up against Sean Davis! What I’m trying to say is that the players will be fully motivated on Saturday, because playing against some of the best in the world is why they’re in this game. You want to play well and show what you’re capable of against the top players.
I was shocked to hear the news on Tuesday that my former teammate Matt Brazier had passed away. I was a kid on the fringes of the First Team when Matt was at the Club. We used to train at the Bank of England, and us youngsters would get a bus from Clapham Junction, and then there was a long road we’d have to walk up to the training ground. Matt would always be the one to stop and give us a lift whenever he drove past. He was a bit younger than the other guys in the squad so he knew what it was like, and he always looked out for us. He was a very nice guy, with a good left foot too. He didn’t play loads at Fulham as he was behind Rufus Brevett in the pecking order, but he definitely had quality and never let us down when called upon. I can’t believe he’s gone, 42 is no age at all, and my thoughts are with his family.
