That light I spoke of just got brighter...

My first ever post in this blog was entitled "The light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel." This was in reference to Nathaniel Clyne, a young Palace right-back who had broken into the Palace team at the end of last year and kept his place. Anyway, the reason I am now posting again about him, is that in the April edition of FourFourTwo magazine, the Top 50 Football League players issue, he came 17th, the highest under the age of 21, and therefore becoming Football League Young Player of the Year for 2010.

Just when you think it cannot get any worse for the Palace... it does

Maybe Palace fans should have seen what was coming when Freddie Sears had his only goal for CPFC wrongly disallowed at Ashton Gate on Saturday 15th August 2009. Some did. But nobody could have predicted the outcome of the season to come. As is now well documented, Palace went into administration, were deducted 10 points to all but end their play-off hopes, lost their manager, Neil Warnock, to QPR, and are now in the relegation zone. Since rumours of former Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock leaving to go to QPR arose, and the glorious cup run began, Palace's league form has really stuttered, and now it may be too late for the south London club to do anything about it. With only 8 games left, Palace find themselves 3 points from safety, but Watford, who occupy 21st place, have a game in hand on them. As well of this, Palace's injury and suspension worries just won't stop increasing:

Nick Carle is out for between 10 and 14 days with a calf strain
Nathaniel Clyne is out with a hip injury and may not play again before the end of the season
Danny Butterfield may be out for 2 weeks with a hamstring strain
Alan Lee is out for at least a weak with a groin issue
Paddy McCarthy is coming back from a very long injury, and may not be back at his best this season
Claude Davis is suspended and in the middle of serving a three match ban for hitting another player
Matt Lawrence is also suspended and in the middle of serving a three match ban for deliberately using his hand to stop the ball against Nottingham Forest.

This means that Palace only have 12 senior players fit for the match against Cardiff tomorrow: Julian Speroni, Clint Hill, Shaun Derry, Darren Ambrose, Neil Danns, Stern John, Sean Scannell, Lee Hills, Calvin Andrew, Kieran Djilali, Johannes Ertl and Alasanne N'Diaye. If a club wants to avoid relegation, having a squad with only 12 fit senior players doesn't really help. Not to mention the fact that the fans are no longer behind the team, with some calling for Paul Hart's head after he appeared to play a 4-5-0 formation against Leicester two weeks ago.

And yet, when many Palace fans felt that their season really couldn't get any worse, it does. Brendan Guilfoyle set a deadline for any interested parties to show him the money, and that deadline was today. Nothing has happened. No statement. Not from anybody. It appears we will go into tomorrows game none the wiser of who, if anybody, is interested in buying CPFC2000Ltd. We shall see how this season will turn out for Crystal Palace FC, but I bet that it will not be a predictable few weeks at the bottom of the Championship.