Many people believed, back on the 31st May, that with a day for a deal to be agreed there would be no football at Selhurst Park on the 7th of August, after probably the most traumatic, dramatic, nerve-wracking and action-packed seasons and summers in Crystal Palace's 105 year history.
And the Palace fans will need to keep in mind the trials and tribulations of being a Palace fan in May and June during the build-up to tomorrows game, and it probably during the majority of the season too.
This past year has been a hectic one for Palace, and everyday something has happened, so it wouldn't surprise me if George Burley and the co-chairmen Martin Long and Steve Parish didn't want a particularly spectacular season, and would rather build for the season after.
Yes, we have a good, shrewd manager, and seemingly sensible finance-conscious owners, but this doesn't mean we will be challenging the top dogs for the league title this season. It will take time for Burley to get in the players he wants, and to get those and the current players to gel and start playing his style of football, and get to know the new faces and new formations.
But Burley won't find it easy erasing Warnock's hoofball tactic from the players memories, and while it wasn't pretty, it worked. Warnock's tactic of not playing the ball on the ground also leaves another problem to be solved.
Palace haven't had a goalscoring striker since Andy Johnson left us for £8.6million in 2006, and Burley will need to be quick if he is to get a good one in either on loan, for a fee or for free.
Because of the new players signing all the time, and the complete change in tactics, we had been outplayed in several friendlies against much, much lower opposition, and I am sure this will continue into the beginning of the season.
But despite all of the new surroundings for the new Palace manager, I fully believe Palace can and will finish in a solid mid-table position, not because of Burley alone, but because he has managed to convince Darren Ambrose to sign a new three year contract, and has signed promising young midfielder Owen Garvan from Ipswich for a fee thought to be around £225k, which could prove to be the deal of the Championship this season, as less than a quarter of a million for a player of Garvan's quality is, quite frankly, daylight robbery.
Not only that, the new crop of youth players seem to be ready to make the step up to the first team, too. As I mentioned in a blog post at the end of last month, the Palace Academy is one of the best in the country, and Wilfred Zaha and Kieron Cadogan both have been exceptional in pre-season. In Cadogan we have a good young winger who made his debut two years ago but was frozen out by Neil Warnock last year, and Zaha is possibly the best young striker at the club.
Burley clearly rates these two and sees their potential, and has a good history of working with youth players, and they look set to play a big role in our early games, without an out-and-out striker and with Danns suspended and Garvan unable to play until the league share goes to CPFC2010, they could be key.
Leicester will be a tough first game tomorrow for Burley, and it the beginning of the season may have come a few weeks to early for Palace, but this season and more importantly tomorrow is not about winning the league or getting promotion, it is about enjoying football.
Not to mention enjoying supporting a football club.
Gibbo
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