BLOG: Crystal Palace out to condemn Arsenal to yet another fourth place finish after mini-revival

Everybody stop what you are doing. Take the day off work. Ring your loved ones to share with them this extraordinary, monumental occasion.

History has been made.

The Papal conclave has released white smoke from the chimneys of the Sistine Chapel.

Pigs have mastered the art of flying.

The fiery depths of hell have frozen over and Satan himself has succumbed to hypothermia.

As the great Busted once said, “I’ve been to the year 3000. Not much has changed but Crystal Palace have won a league game.”

I imagine in years to come, younger generations will approach me and ask: “Where were you when Crystal Palace beat Norwich?”

What a relief.

In terms of footballing quality, it wasn’t a game that’s going to live long in the memory.

It was a scrappy, nervous 90 minutes between two teams desperately trying not to lose, that was ultimately settled by a moment of quality from a rejuvenated Jason Puncheon.

But the performance is irrelevant and we got the win that secures Premier League football for another season.

I think even the most pessimistic of Palace fans can appreciate that we’re not going down, despite my dad’s constant reminder of Oldham’s miraculous escape at our expense in 1993.

Before we played Norwich, most people said they would’ve been delighted to get four points from the next two games and not only did we manage it with a draw against Everton, we also got two very important clean sheets.

We’ve all made jokes at Wayne Hennessey’s expense, but in my mind there’s no doubt that he’s the best goalkeeper at the club and was just suffering from a severe lack of confidence.

He performed wonderfully on Wednesday and can hopefully continue that form into the coming weeks, especially with a semi-final at Wembley just around the corner.

The defence as a whole has looked a lot more solid in the last few games, as it looks like Pardew has finally given up on his fantasy of making 4-4-2 work for us.

HMS Palace was a sinking ship and it’s only taken Captain Pardew three months to make an effort to block all the holes, instead of throwing buckets of water overboard and hoping for the best.

Now we’re in no danger of drowning for the time being, he’s bought himself some time to think about long-term repairs.

Although I’m not expecting much out of the next two games as we’ll have one eye on the cup, it’d be great to beat Arsenal and condemn them to yet another fourth place finish.

After another summer reading about how this was going to be ‘their year’, the inevitable slide down the table has been great fun to watch, particularly as they’re going to finish below their fiercest rivals and a Leicester team that were relegation certainties 12 months ago.

This was their best chance to win the league in over ten years and they blew it, so it’s probably time their fans lost their deluded sense of entitlement and accepted that they’re not that good.

It shows just how weak the Premier League has been this year that Palace didn’t win for three and a half months and we’re still only six points from a top half finish.

I can imagine Pardew will be looking to rest a few players ahead of the Watford game, particularly on Wednesday, so I’ll be happy with a couple of solid performances to keep confidence levels high ready for Wembley next weekend.