Going to the dogs

Crystal Palace v Watford

Saturday 9^th August

Even before we’d been defeated by eventual play-off winners Hull City at the end of last season, Jordan Stewart had been allowed to leave. Nathan Ellington was loaned to Derby, where he joined Stewart, after one season as our record signing and departed with some words about the style of play he preffered. Danny Shittu seemed poised to join Rangers all summer but went to Bolton for £2 million a week or so ago and Darius Henderson left for the same fee to rivals Sheffield United, where he has already scored in pre-season. Other peripheral players left too and coming in we had Jon Harley from Burnley on a free. Meanwhile the chairman has announced that we have somehow spent all the money that we earned in our premiership season and from the sales of Ashley Young, Hameur Bouazza (now at Charlton) and Marlon King (now at Hull in the premiership).

There is talk that we may need to offload Tommy Smith and Jobi McAnuff this month too while the need for a striker was underlined by the nil-nil draw we got at Selhurst Park today. While there were “handbags” during a game we dominated, I was with Jun and friends in Chinatown pretending that going sixths on dim sum was a fair deal for a vegetarian before Rod gave three of us a lift to Walthamstow Stadium for one of the last evenings of greyhound racing there. I’d happily have traded the few pounds down I was on the races for a point away against a team that finished above us last year. It might just be that I’m unduly pessimistic.