Palace Casuals

[talisman]

Shock news! Palace Casuals have broken their Preliminary Round hoodoo...


Second leg game saw the new nucleus of the league team blooded, 'keeper Zoltan Bieder, left-sided defender Freddie Jones and utility midfielders and subs from the 1st leg Hansen and Shaqiri introduced instead of Dragut, Tikihy, Haubner and the injured attacking midfielder Graf; Silva Lima gets his chance in place of the suspended Babou Noubi, Domanski moving from defence to the defensive midfielder slot.

A largely forgettable first half saw two defence-heavy teams slug it out without end result, apart from a couple of bookings for two home players.

A half-time switch replacing Domanski with second midfielder Tzanakakis, moving the two wide midfielders to advanced positions and adding an attacking slant saw two quick goals for the Casuals soon after the restart, last year's Player-of-the-Season Anurak Arma bending a free-kick past the static home custodian and debutant defender Jones arriving in the box in time to head in a cross from right-winger Shaqiri. Arma then put in a Man-of-the-Match performance in helping the defence thwart any retaliation by the home side, and Palace ran out 2-0 winners, taking the tie 4-2 on aggregate. The only blot on the copy book was a booking for striker Andres Ramos for a clumsy tackle.



Off the field, a bit of rummaging around in the transfer markets has failed to unearth a suitable central midfielder so it looks like the existing trio will need to bear the responsibility. A watch will need to be put on the performance of Babou Noubi, who faded badly at the end of last season and has, at the same time, lost a little self-discipline...

Current squad: