Good post. The only additional point I’d make is that I haven’t given up on Toby yet. It’s too easy when a player has a bad patch and they’re over 30 to say they’re done, but it isn’t always the case. It can just be a bad patch.
Gary Cahill looks excellent at Palace this season after being written off by Chelsea as “shot“ a year ago.
Injury has precluded it, but I would have really enjoyed a run with Toby and Tango CB, with Japhet being able to learn from easily the most intelligent defender at the club.
I guess without even adequate DCM protection in front, our defence is always overly exposed though.
Look how good Morgan and Huth looked with Kante in front!
Because Palace's game plan is to sit back and play on the counter. In theory with a player like Zaha plus other speedsters like Ayew and Townsend it makes sense. It's perfect for Cahill because he's an old fashioned defender who puts his body on the line. He doesn't have to cover spaces because he's got a block of team mates doing it. He doesn't have to move much. Just hold fort, stick his head here, put his laces through the ball there. Perfect for him but they hardly score goals and I can't imagine their forwards are enjoying it.
Toby if we started to adopt those tactics such as the Man Utd game full time might start showing his old form again only in the sense he's being asked to always be alert and give him lots of work to do. But we'll have the problem where if your CB is constantly being called into action by design then it's not sustainable for any ambitious target and it's boring to watch.