6. If Goals Are The Question, Fraizer Campbell Isn't The Answer
After a performance that was as bad as Palace's was on Sunday, it seems unfair to single out one player but it's appropriate here. Fraizer Campbell has struggled for opportunities since signing from Cardiff in July 2014 but Sunday afternoon terrible for him, even if you allowed for rustiness. Which we shouldn't. Palace needed him to be prepared and ready to go and he clearly wasn't. Second best to everything, he kept putting the Palace midfield and back four under pressure with his inability to hold the ball up or make the right decision. Palace were looking to break quickly and when the ball went up to him, Palace players would try and burst forward to support him. However, with the ball ricocheting off his shin into the path of the nearest Chelsea defender, they would be left with players hopelessly out of position and an exposed back four. In the end, the midfield just stopped supporting him and he became more and more isolated. In his defence, the loan striker role isn't his preferred position but when your second touch is a tackle, you are causing your side more damage than good and the position you are playing becomes irrelevant. He had two or three sights of the Chelsea goal and made a mess of each - the worst, failing to anticipate that John Terry might not reach a cross, meaning that he was leaden footed in the six yard box as the ball dropped near him. Campbell clearly has no future at Palace but if that was a 'shop window' performance, Palace will end up having to beg clubs to get him off their hands
