Palace fans have the right to feel aggrieved

Since that emphatic win against Leicester City on the first day of the season, it has so far been a season of constant struggles for Burley’s men and it doesn’t seem to be improving after another good performance from Palace ends up in another defeat at home.

When Palace’s situation looked to be on the up after a 4-1 win against Portsmouth, with James Vaughan making the best of impressions on his first appearance at Selhurst Park by scoring a hat-trick, those high hopes soon faded when Palace were defeated 5-0 by Derby.

It hasn’t been a case of all ‘doom and gloom’ at Palace, with their performances, including the defeat on Saturday, being on the positive side.

Along with the majority of Palace fans, I went into the game with high expectations and I had belief in the team, whether we would start with one striker or none at all.

I couldn’t think of a better incentive of winning than playing your local rivals, with the atmosphere one of the best I have seen at Selhurst Park for a while.

I can’t have any complaints with Burley’s starting line-up; he played to his strengths and started with an attacking force of Counago, Zaha and Cadogan.

The first 45 minutes were full of attacking play by Palace and we were unlucky to go into half-time without scoring at least once, but it has been a constant occurrence this season that if we don’t take our chances then we will get punished.

And once again, this was proved correct when Millwall scored one of their only attacking chances in the 53rd minute, on-loan Huddersfield striker Theo Robinson was first to react to Steve Morrison’s knock-down and the attacker neatly rounded Speroni and finished into an empty net. Palace did have their fair share of chances after the opening goal, with Zaha wasting two good opportunities to shoot on goal but the youngster failed to do so.

The Red and Blue army were paid to regret their misses once again with the game finishing 1-0 to Millwall.

Now I do feel sorry for Burley, he inherited a very small squad and the former Scotland boss has done well to get the players he has, but on Saturday I didn’t feel that he had the passion us fans had and showed.

My complaints; if you’re losing 1-0 since the early minutes of the second half, would it not make sense to give it your all?

I felt that Burley lacked enthusiasm and hunger and this showed even more when he failed to use all of his three substitutes, with the likes of Edgar Davids and Calvin Andrew warming the bench.

But I still have high hopes for this season, with only 11 games gone, and I dare to mention that dreaded word that was used throughout Palace’s last 10 games last season until I feel we can no longer improve our performances.

We clearly have a huge injury problem that is no fault of our own; with our best players in Danns and Ambrose at the top of a long list of injured players.

With all these criticisms, I still have faith in Burley and his players, and I believe it’s a matter of 'playing the waiting game'.

Once we get the likes of Ambrose and Scannell back into the frame, we will have a team who opponents will be scared of playing, but at the moment, there’s nothing scary about Zaha and Dorman.

I look surprisingly forward to tonight’s trip to third-placed Norwich, with the opponents having injury concerns of their own to worry about.

So until I get my hopes up and finish the article with something along the lines of 'Burley, make sure we win', there has never been a dull moment when supporting Palace and at least they give me something to write about.

Now I hope you’re reading this Burley; I want something to celebrate!

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