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It’s the second round of the League Cup. We’d like to confirm that Preview Percy isn’t Cup-Tied as nobody would take him on loan without us paying a substantial fee. So here’s his musings on Wednesday’s visit of AFC Bournemouth...

Next up we have our first midweek sortie of the season as we face "AFC" Bournemouth in the second round of the League Cup. As ever with sponsored stuff this column’s usual policy is that if someone wants me to advertise their product I’ll only mention them if they send me some free samples.




However, for the League Cup, having once had the misfortune of tasting what it is that the sponsors actually make, I’d like to tell them not to bother. Kick-off on Wednesday is at 7:45 and, should the scores be level at full time, the match will proceed to "kicks from the penalty mark" without the traditional use of extra-time first.

So Bournemouth then. It’s played two drawn two in the league so far, with 1-1 stalemates up at Forest and, on Sunday at home to Newcastle who, suspiciously, were on the right end of some questionable refereeing again. I’m guessing that anyone who works for PGMOL is usually ok for petrol these days.

They brought in seven players over the summer, a number that Daisy reckons is at the upper limit of the number that she is willing to research before she asks for more money. The first arrival came in the form of striker Enes Unal. Unal netted twice in 16 league appearances last season whilst on loan from Getafe, to whom the Cherries paid £13m in July to make the deal permanent.

Mrs Unal is better known, well in Belgium anyway, as Genk striker Lisa Smellers, who, if she’s a traditionalist, might well have been grateful for the change of surname when they got married. Unal won’t be about for this one – he is yet to make an appearance due to a foot/ankle injury.

Next in was young Kiwi 'keeper Alex Paulsen who came in for £850k from New Zealand outfit Wellington Phoenix. Not sure that his work permit status would let him in, but the question is academic since he’s been immediately loaned back whence he came.

They kept the Commonwealth theme going in signing Canadian Daniel Jebbison for £1.5m’s worth of compensation from Sheffield United. Jebbison has been capped by England up to Under 20 level but the country of his birth are still keeping tabs on him, adding him to last year’s CONCACACACAF Gold Cup squad, though he didn’t make the final cut. Both of his appearances this season have come off the bench.

Someone called Koby Mottoh came in on a free from Pompey but since he was signed as an Under 21 player Daisy refused to do anymore digging, pointing out that she had enough to do with people who might play against us without throwing in those who probably wouldn’t.

Spaniard Dean Huijsen arrived for £12.8m from Juventus. Now I hear you saying "Huijsen? Spaniard" and you’d be right. That Dutch-sounding surname is because he was born in Amsterdam. However he moved to Spain at the age of five and, having pottered about with the Malaga youth team for a bit, Juventus lured him Eastwards at the age of 16 to slot in to their youth system.




He only made one league appearance for "The Old Lady" (no, not you Daisy) though he did have a Baker’s Dozen of appearances for Roma on loan last season. Still only 19 the central defender has Dutch Caps up to Under 19 level since when he has shifted allegiance to the Spanish for whom he has citizenship. He has made two appearances for the much-lauded Spanish Under 21 side. He started up at Forest but was an unused sub against the Magpies at the weekend.

If their fans were coming to terms with Bournemouth signing a player from Juventus, they will have been in a similar state of disbelief at picking up a right-back from Barcelona. However, like Huijsen with Juventus, Mexican-American Julien Arajo’s previous club was really only in name. Araujo made no league appearances for Barca, spending his time on their books out on loan in the Canaries with Las Palmas.

He’s another with split International allegiances. Born in California he was capped at every age level for the Septics he even made one full appearance for them before deciding things would be better South Of The Border, Down Mexico Way and he has now made over a dozen appearances for the land of the now-defunct Aztec chocolate bar. He started against Newcastle and came off the bench against Forest.

Their final signing – to date – was their biggest. £40.2m was the fee paid to Porto to bring Brazilian international Evanilson to Dean Court. Perhaps unsurprisingly, that figure is a club record. He’s been capped twice by the full Brazilian squad. He made his Cherries debut on Sunday, lasting about 75 mins before being subbed.

That’s their signings sorted. On we move to the Wild and Wacky World of Association Football. Odd apology of the week came from Chelsea’s Madueke, who went all contrite over a social media post to the effect that everything about Wolverhampton was "shit". The apology was along the lines of "I didn’t mean to offend" which was a bit puzzling given the content of said post. Now if he’d said "sorry I meant what I said but that was before I saw Croydon and I now realise exactly how wrong I was" his apology would at least have made sense.

Talking of Croydon (note to editor I charge more for seamless links like that) brings us to our win down in that god-forsaken dump (every offence intended). There was much improvement from the Villa match as players got to grips much more with a system more geared to our being on the front foot. Killman in particular impressed and he was much praised by the BBC who, forgetting that he isn’t a Liverpool player, described his part in the second goal as "striding out like Baresi in his pomp".

Wan-Bissaka’s part in the first goal should also be noted. Everyone has been telling me how good he is defensively but it was his attacking game which, apparently, he doesn’t have, that caught the eye. He brought the ball out of defence down the line and, having found what looked like a blind alley, he remained calm before playing a lovely ball into the path of Bowen.

Two other points of note. Older readers may remember when the fad of Fantasy Football was at its height back in the mid-1990s Frank Skinner and David Baddiel had a programme which, whilst ostensibly about the Fantasy Football League was, in reality, more of a sporadically amusing look at the game in general.




Part of this programme was entitled "Phoenix From The Flames" where they would hop over to the local rec and re-enact famous goals or other scenes from matches from the past. Now I have no idea as to whether they ever bothered with the case of Zaire’s Mwepu Ilunga’s sole real contribution to fame, running out of the defensive wall in a 1974 World Cup group game to kick the ball away before opponents Brazil could take a free kick, then looking puzzled as to why he was being booked.

But if they didn’t, Paqueta seemed intent on recreating the moment for them.

In Paqueta’s defence, it did look as if the ball had been touched which would have enabled him to run away with the ball unimpeded. However, referee Jones, who spent all afternoon punishing perfectly good clean challenges, was having none of it, though he shied clear from issuing the yellow card that might have raised eyebrows amongst those currently investigating Paqueta. Ilunga did say that his action had been a protest against the way the player’s pay seemed to go missing between the Zaire FA and the players’ bank accounts and that he had been hoping for a red.

The other point of note was slightly more serious. We are, of course, aware that Palace’s attitude to safety in the away section is somewhat lax, with throughways which funnel large numbers of people into dangerously small spaces. Not for nothing is it referred to as "The Death Trap". The rest of the infrastructure appears to be a but iffy too.

As fans moved forward in celebration of our first, a gate collapsed and the resulting forward surge knocked over an advertising hoarding, trapping a ball boy. Thankfully goalscorer Souceck saw what was happening and rescued the understandably shaken youngster from underneath the hoarding where Bowen took over health and safety duties. It could have been a lot worse but for the players’ quick thinking and the ball boy escaped with nothing more than injured pride and a bit of shock. Still they have a safety certificate so everything must be ok, mustn’t it.

The early return of Alvarez means that we have a full squad to pick from for the first time since, well probably since those astronauts left for space. I would expect that, as is the modern way these days, some of the new boys will be given starts to get some game time and match fitness into their legs and minds. Having said that, at present that’s a potentially strong 2nd XI we are looking at there.

I watched Bournemouth at the weekend and, whilst they were the better of the two sides in the first half, my theory was that that owed more to Newcastle’s deficiencies than to their own attributes. The second half seemed to bear out that theory, and they laboured to a draw, the controversy over the disallowed late goal distracting somewhat from their shortcomings.

So on this occasion I will be keeping the £2 I was going to send to that ball boy (he now has Bowen’s shirt which he can probably swap for that of a dozen Palace players plus cash and we don’t want to spoil him) and spending it on a wager for a home win. Make it 3-1 to us please Mr Winstone.

Enjoy the game!




When last we met at the Olympic Drew 1-1 (Premier League February 2024)

Kalvin Phillips’s first touch of the ball saw him tee up Solanke for a 3rd minute opener. In fairness the ball from Zouma did him no favours and we all thought "well he’s bound to be a bit rusty, he’ll get better". But he didn’t. Ward-Prowse equalised on the hour from the spot after Kudus had been hauled down for a penalty that should never have required a lengthy VAR break in order to be awarded. Other than that, our winless start to 2024 stretched to 5 league games as the lack of squad depth bean to kick in.

Referee: Peter Bankes

For the second match in a row we are given the official who made a complete hash of his stewardship of a match against Newcastle last season. Banks gifted the Geordies both goals in our 2-2 draw last season, awarding a free-kick against Paqueta for being brought down by a Newcastle player and ignoring a blatant two-handed push in the box that Peters out of Peters and Lee would have spotted had he been alive. Actually he probably spotted it anyway.

Danger Man: Antoine Samenyo

Scored their late equaliser on the opening day up at Forest and looked the more dangerous of their attacking threats in assisting with their opener on Sunday against the Geordies.

Percy & Daisy’s Tenuous Bournemouth Fact Of The Week

In 1985 Bournemouth became the first town in England to install street CCTV. Its first use came when a couple of bank robbers were filmed running out of the local Midland carrying bags from which banknotes were dropping on the floor. The trial was halted when a jury comprised of football referees looked at the footage for 3 days before deciding that they weren’t sure as they couldn’t see the word "Swag" on the bag. Both crooks were convicted at the retrial with a jury comprised of ordinary members of the public which took 3 minutes (two of which were spent electing a foreman) to come to their "guilty" verdict.

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