Pulis' Potters Philosophy Probable at Palace

Hello again.

I won't go into major depth now because there's not a lot to say. I missed most of our game with Dortmund (damn you Bake Off and your addictive ways) and I'll do a preview to the Palace game tomorrow so in the mean time I'll touch on a couple of stories floating around.

It seems as if Tony Pulis will take over at Palace imminently and I must say I'm sorry. Palace fans were never going to have an easy time this season with a squad as pitifully poor as the one they possess but now it seems that even going out with a bang will be beyond them. I'm not suggesting that Ian Holloway had them playing particularly attractive football but with the appointment of Mr Pulis forthcoming, the only bangs the Eagles fans can expect this year will fit nicely between crashes and wallops. But as a friend of mine suggested, Palace almost deserve a double relegation for being so out of their league.

It's interesting to see the animosity that exists between Pulis and Arsenal. I myself had a grudging respect for him and Stoke when they first entered the league. People who hammered them for playing ugly football didn't understand that for clubs struggling against relegation, any style that got results was beautiful. I think it was the seeming willingness to continue with this Route 1 style and the souring of the relationship between the then Stoke boss and Arsene that turned most Gunners against him. The Aaron Ramsey leg break didn't exactly endear him to us but ultimately it was the two differing philosophies that meant we just never understood each other. Pulis' Stoke were often called a Rugby team and Wenger's Arsenal write poetry on the football field, as displayed by Jack Wilshere's sultry goal last weekend. We're polar opposites.

Palace do seem a club suited to him though. Chamakh is a player capable of playing that most splendid role, the 'Knock-Down' man, that Peter Crouch and Kenwyne Jones fulfilled at Stoke and Jimmy Kebe is a player that typically would fit into his system. They're still going down though. It would take a miracle of messianic proportions to keep them in the league and Tony Pulis ain't no Jesus.

In other news, there's another race row erupting in football. I don't wish to trivialise the situation involving Yaya Toure, but it does seem like the same old story. Player tells of racial abuse suffered, UEFA state how opposed they are to racism and discrimination, club in question receive paltry fine. If UEFA genuinely cared, there would be hard-line measures in place by now to kick out this sort of disgusting behaviour. These incidents occur primarily in European football so the five or low six figure fines that teams get when their fans dish out racial abuse is offset by the money earned by competing in Europe in the first place. An incredible incident that sticks in my mind is Manchester City returning one minute late after half time in a Europa League fixture and still receiving a bigger fine than the team they were playing who's fans hurled racist abuse at the City players. I must say that Michel Platini is really sullying his reputation in the game in his role as European Football's chief big-wig.

There are so many steps that could be taken to stop this sort of thing happening, as it does, on an all too regular basis. If fans of a club are heard chanting offensive songs at a game, why not force the club to double their ticket prices for European games in the next year, with the additional money going to a racial equality charity. If racist bigots were faced with a choice of keeping quiet at games, or being priced out of them altogether then surely they'd choose the later. Proper bans for the teams could equally work. A three year European ban for a club with repeated incidents of this ilk would force them to get their fans in check.

However, it seems that UEFA, for one reason or another, will not take decisive action. And while this remains the case, we can never suppress this ugly side of the game.

Anyway, back tomorrow with that Palace game preview. More light hearted, I promise. Till then my friends.