Latest Opinion

Preview Percy was in a good mood when he woke up. Then he realised he would have to write about Croydon and the referee from last season’s trip to Newcastle. The result? Well much as you might expect...

Next up, having had our inoculations, we pay a visit to London’s dumping ground of Croydon where we will visit the Death Trap that is Selhurst Park to play Crystal Palace. Kick-off is at 3pm and if your usual train to Norwood Junction takes you through Streatham Hill, West Norwood, Gypsy Hill and Crystal Palace think again – this season’s first lot of engineering works will get in the way.




So Palace, then. A good run towards the end of the season has some of their amusingly naff “ultras” banging on about European qualification at the end of this season. That notion took an initial dent in their season-opener at Brentford last week where they went down 2-1.

That was probably a fair result in my view, though they will, no doubt, be pointing out the disallowed first-half effort from Eze didn’t help matters. Ref Barrott betrayed his rookie status by admitting to Palace players that he’d blown up early, thus breaking PGMOL rule no.1 which is lie, obfuscate, confuse but never, ever never admit a mistake.

After last week’s marathon session of new signings, the lovely Daisy was highly relieved to discover that they had signed only the three first-teamers. Don’t worry love, we’ve got Chelsea in a few weeks.

The Glaziers’ first signing arrived in the form of central defender Chadi Riad. The 21 year-old central defender arrived from Barcelona’s B team set-up on a deal worth a reported £14m. The Moroccan international was on the bench for last weekend’s trip to the Bus Stop In Hounslow but may be anticipating more game time given that Anderson seems to be Fulham-bound and Guehi still looks likely to leave before the window shuts.

Kit-sales will have received a boost with the arrival of Japanese midfielder Daichi Kamada on a free from Lazio. If that name rings a bell it’s because it was he who tapped in to give Eintracht a first-leg lead in the Thursday Night League semi-final the other year, leaving the match officials to finish the job for the Germans in Frankfurt.

He spent last season in Rome but didn’t endear himself to the Lazio ownership by allegedly demanding an €2.5m bonus to stay another year. Lazio declined his kind offer, their CEO muttering something about sending mercenaries on their way.

With the player not commanding a fee, it’s not recorded whether the player got a decent bonus from the Glaziers but frankly anyone in their right mind would want a decent wedge for having to work in Croydon, which, as you will be aware, is the cesspit that produced the loathsome former Mrs Percy.

The final first team arrival was Ismaili Sarr. Sarr spent four years over at Watford netting 33 goals in 128 league appearances. Back then Sarr was a £30m player but his stock, such as it ever was, has fallen over the intervening years to the effect that it took a mere £12.5m for Palace to bring the 26 year-old Senegalese international over from Marseilles.

Given the fact that Sarr appears to have been tasked with replacing Michael Olise, who legged it off to Bayern for €60m, Palace supporters might be forgiven for being less than overwhelmed at the deal.




That’s it. Just the three in then. We may, therefore, as well move on to the Wild And Wacky World Of Association Football.

The inevitable happened up at Forest last weekend. With the linesman adhering to the ludicrous policy of not flagging for even the most obvious of offsides until the play has broken down once and for all, Forest’s Danilo picked up an horrific ankle break during the following period.

Many observers have been predicting such an occurrence. No doubt PGMOL will smugly point to some obscure regulation that absolves them from their duty of care to the safety of players but it’s a mad situation where linesmen don’t bother anymore in the hope that VAR will bail them out in the end.

Meanwhile the apparent bout of insanity that Chelsea’s owners seem to be enduring at present shows no sign of abating with their squad size having a population equivalent to that of Tokyo. Their latest deal involves spending £45m on a Joao Felix whose previous loan spell at the club was hardly a success, with Conor Gallagher going over to Athletico Madrid in return.

Lord knows what’s happening over there, but the sooner the profit and sustainability rules put them out of their misery the better.

And so to us. Well to me the team on Saturday had the air of a group of players transitioning between an old style of play and a new one, never being quite sure of what they were supposed to be doing. Sort of inevitable at the start of a season under new management, particularly since the bulk of the starting XI were part of last season’s squad.

Of the new boys, Summerville showed some good touches when he came on but overall it was a case of better to come from everyone as new boys bed in and old boys get used to the new boss.

I note the refereeing hasn’t improved any this season and that the usual promises to clamp down on timewasting lasted, well in the case of Martinez, all of 12 minutes.

Back in the day referees were instructed to penalise goalkeepers who failed to release the ball after six seconds. Martinez was averaging well over 20 seconds a time. The situation reached ridiculous levels as seven minutes of stoppage were added. Of that time the ball was in Martinez’s hands for a good two minutes and it took a further two minutes to restart play when the ball went behind.




The ref made great show of noting the timewasting – doing that theatrical pointing at their watch thing they are so fond of. All of which would have been slightly more impressive had he actually added any further time. Meanwhile if someone could tell Martinez he can release the ball now and come in I’m sure the obnoxious nerk would be grateful.

And as for Villa’s fans singing songs of the so-called Champions League, well I’m sure Real Madrid are bricking it at the prospect of having to face a team who performed so well in the Thursday Night Conference.

We have a full squad to pick from bar Edson Alvarez, whose hamstring injury sustained in the Copa America will likely keep him out of contention until after the September international break .

Well until the season settles down and everyone beds in and we discover which blend of players provides us with our optimum starting XI, predictions are going to be a bit and miss. Or, more accurately, more hit and miss than usual. As I say there were little spells last week where we looked promising and things will undoubtedly improve as the team gels. It’s just a matter of how quickly that process happens.

Now some of you noticed that last week’s wager placed on the Winstone Turf Accountancy app was placed in the amount of £2 rather than the more traditional £2.50 which has been the case in the past. “Why so parsimonious, Percy? I hear you say.

Well it’s quite simple really. You see with Daisy and I tying the knot next summer the dear old thing has decided that she needs some sort of “wedding dress”. Now these things don’t buy themselves so I figured sticking away 50p a week should do the trick down at the local market. I know, I spoil that girl.

So for this week my reduced wager of £2, which was the amount I was going to going to spend on a working watch for last week’s referee, will instead be wagered on a score draw result. Let’s call it 2-2 shall we?

Enjoy the game!




When last we met at the Death Trap – Lost 5-2 (Premier League April 2024)

Six players injured, a geriatric central defensive partnership and a side recovering from giving last season’s all-conquering Bayer Leverkusen the fright of their lives. Even Palace weren’t going to miss out were they?

Referee: Rob Jones

What is it about the Wirral that produces liars and cheats as referees. Jones is the festering abscess on the on the backside of football that is PGMOL who took charge of our away trip to Newcastle last season. He first gave a penalty that was a) offside and b) not a penalty. Burns’ rugby tackle on Kudus when clean through went unpunished. This was followed up by Jones’ second penalty decision, which, incredibly was even worse than the first – the luckless Phillips being penalised for being kicked by an opponent. He had every chance to get things right when shown the replays on VAR but his failure to do so meant that the only conclusion one can reach was that he had no intention of applying the laws of the game in an honest fashion. The fact that he is still in a job after such a display tells you all you need to know about PGMOL’s commitment to refereeing standards.

Danger Man: Ebereche Eze

Looked the sharper of their forward men last week and was a bit unlucky with the free-kick. Prone to go down if a defender ventures within the same postcode district as him which, given the referee this week doesn’t bode well.

Percy & Daisy’s Tenuous Palace Fact Of The Week

The original Crystal Palace, which relocated from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition in 1851 contained the world’s first major installation of flushing toilets. This is commemorated by the Arthur Waite Stand, which to this very day resembles a Victorian bog.



* Like to share your thoughts on this article? Please visit the KUMB Forum to leave a comment.

* Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the highlighted author/s and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official policy or position of KUMB.com.