Another game, another defeat. What was hard to stomach was that Palace were no great shakes. We played much of the football on display, especially after another poor referee decision lead to Moses being sent off for a second dubious bookable offence, and we had to play against ten men.

I didn't understand the referee – he allowed all manner of things to happen to Hulse, but booked Moses twice, the second – from what I could see – being engineered by Sterjovski.

I don't like Palace, never have done. Ever since the Bert Head days when they went up with us in 1969 – we beat them away and they beat us at home. They played uncompromising football, their squad made up of journeymen players, hard working, hard tackling, and lacking in finesse. John McCormick – to me – epitomised all that was wrong with Palace. Since then, they have never had a team to set the senses alight – for me, they are always associated with drudgery. Even their glamour associated with Venables and Allison irritated me as a lot of it was based on London hacks over-hyping them.

Two seasons ago, they beat us, our only consolation was the chanting of ‘Que Sera sera' that brought a smile to our faces, knowing we would miss out on automatic promotion.

This last weekend – it just seemed more of the same; Palace, a dull insipid team, with big beefy blokes up front and at the back, and a manager that everyone loves to hate. But they did the basics. They scored and stopped us. And we didn't. We didn't score, and we didn't stop them scoring.

Their players seemed to compete to see who could kick the highest and they won so many headers – at one stage Kris Commons, dwarfed by one of their players, just stood there as if to say, ‘you win – go on, head it'.

But. Again - that ‘but'. They won. And we didn't. And if we're not careful, we'll be going down while they languish in boring mid-table mediocrity.

Yet what else can Clough do? He hasn't got the personnel to change how we play. We can't play Route One – Jewell tried that with disastrous effect. We also haven't got any defenders left.

We are just going to have to keep playing and defending as best as we can and hope that we can sneak enough points to stay up. I think we can. We probably need the 53 points that will ensure a renewed contract and we still need 2 more to get those. Then we can open the champagne (or Cava - seeing it's the credit crunch) to savour the fact that we haven't gone straight through the Championship after acquiring the tag of ‘Premiership worst team ever'.

But back to the Palace game, they had two centre backs who seemingly took it in turns to manhandle Hulse – certainly not pretty but effective. That is until Tito came on and started to fall down with alarming regularity near the box. But we still couldn't find a way through and no doubt those big lads at the back came off with broad grins thinking ‘job done'.

We'll need something similar for next season, if perhaps a bit more refined, to fit in with the football that Clough wants us to play. The two centre backs need to be able to head the ball well away from any danger into areas where our players can pick up the second ball if not the first. They will also need not to be bundled off the ball by the likes of Kuqi who is limited but effective at this level. And they must be able to pass to a colleague close by so that we can attack along the floor.

Therein lies the problem for Clough – where to find them? Even at Arsenal, Wenger has been criticised for not buying strong enough centre backs to withstand some of the more robust forwards around (Stoke and Bolton spring to mind). That's why big loveable Darren is still plying his trade up in Barnsley never mind that he's never been able to pass to a colleague more than ten yards away. We need a young version (much younger) who is able to pass and set up attacks and settle those nerves at the back.

That's probably going to be the hardest job Clough has in the next two seasons – to find two centre backs and a good back-up to start to stiffen the spine of the team. Sounds familiar? His father did exactly the same at Derby all these years ago – he found McFarland and later Mackay – both who were as hard as nails but able to pass properly.

My prediction is that Clough will be bringing in someone that none of us have heard of, and perhaps an old head with a season and half left to teach the back four how to defend. Jewell tried this with Stubbs only to find that he fell apart as soon as someone blew a kiss at him. So it has to be someone robust enough but also clever enough to organise and teach the rest of the defence the basics and more.

But first, I want those points for safety, notwithstanding Norwich's defeat yesterday, and then I can focus again on growing my fingernails that have grown unpleasantly short.

Photo: Action Images

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