A million “Announce Eze” tweets later Palace have finally done exactly that. Eberechi Eze has made all the right noises about being excited to be at Palace, being in the Premier League and wanting to entertain our fans.

For many the most interesting point he makes on his obligatory “First Interview” is being excited by the project and his position in that project. That begs the question where does a Number 10 like Eze fit in a team that hasn’t played with one for a long time?

Yohan Cabaye was supposed to be one we thought but he turned into a defensive midfielder with an eye for a pass. Max Meyer was the next but he’s never really done it for us and if the manager is to be believed doesn’t actually want to play there.

If you were to ask the layman what formation Palace play most would say 4-3-3 but since Andros Townsend’s form went off the boil that hasn’t really been the case. It’s often been more of a lopsided 4-4-2 with the only real change being where in the system Zaha plays and whether Ayew or Benteke is the spearhead. It’s certainly been the case though that we haven’t consistently played with a number 10 since Puncheon departed and even then, he was a converted winger.

Historically Roy Hodgson has always been a 4-4-2 man and back several years ago the number 10 was deemed to be the more creative influence alongside the goal scoring number 9. Modern football has morphed that role somewhat into usually being the middle man of the 3 in a 4-2-3-1 formation – this is the role that Eze has starred in while at Queens Park Rangers. Comments from their fans, who seem genuinely please for him getting a Premier League move, have indicated that were Palace to try to play him out wide we would be losing a significant part of his game – ball carrying and passing is his game and perhaps he doesn’t have the electric pace to cause a problem for the top Premier League fullbacks.

So how can Palace tweak their current system to accommodate Eze without losing the defensive solidity that we’ve based our survival on over the last few seasons. Simply you can’t – there has to be a bit of give and take and an understanding that to add in a more offensive player means you lose a defensive one but also the old adage of attack being the best form of defensive can come into play. More attacking and creative players means more possession and more attack and maybe don’t need to defend quite as much.

The most obvious formation to choose would be the 4-2-3-1 which is also the one implemented by QPR most often last season. However, there’s no getting away from it, this means 4 attacking players on the pitch. Not something Roy Hodgson has generally entertained since Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Michy Batshuayi left.

MORE: What Palace can expect from Eze - from a QPR fan's perspective

Having Eze interlink with Zaha, Townsend and Ayew sounds exciting – throw Ryan Fraser in too and that’s a lot of creative ability. Equally with a more conventional front man teams aren’t going to be able to double mark Zaha like they have done in recent years without opening gaps that Eze should be able to exploit more than our current crop of midfielders have been able to. Meyer was supposed to do that but just never has. The supply lines into that forward man could finally be opened up.

Of course, Roy might prefer to keep his 3 defensive midfielders while also trying to accommodate Eze and the way he might do that does go against Palace norms of having wide players. Four options here are the largely interchangeable 4-2-2-2, 4-4-2 Diamond, 4-4-2 Narrow and 4-3-2-1. The resources don’t change but the starting positions do.

The 4-3-2-1 Christmas tree formation has largely been consigned to history but would allow the selection of 3 defensive midfielders and allowing Zaha and Eze to provide the flair and creativity to feed a central striker. The key here would be allowing the fullbacks to get forward enough to provide the width allowing the attacking players to avoid having to drift wide. While I don’t doubt that Van Aanholt (or Mitchell) and Ferguson could perform the role I’m not sure if our aged centre backs would benefit from a system that forces them into a less narrow defensive shape which has served us so well.

A 4-2-2-2 formation still requires the fullbacks to get forward to provide the width but allows for one of the midfielders – James McArthur or someone like a Conor Gallagher to get further forward alongside Eze. Zaha is then pushed further ahead alongside the striker. A 4-4-2 Diamond might find a balance that moves slightly more to the attacking and opens up avenues for Jeff Schlupp to come into the side on the left and a similar player on the right.

it would be fairly easy to shift between these last few formations without changing the personnel but often the choice of formation is a sign of intent. You can tell the same set of players they’re playing 4-5-1 or 4-3-3 and it largely makes no difference other than the expectation of the wide men is set as to whether you’re focussed on offensive or defensive duties – too often recently our play has been too much of the latter to the near total dereliction of the former.

Perhaps the most likely contender for a formation picked by Roy Hodgson would be the Narrow 4-4-2 with Eze occupying the same role that Ruben Loftus Cheek did.

In my opinion this seems like the place we’ll probably see him play to start but also potentially the most disappointing use of his talents. RLC was the total package as midfielders go and could do it all – pushing him too far forward almost diminished his defensive abilities, eye for a long raking pass and ability to stride down the pitch but Eze isn’t the same player. When given a less central role at QPR he often went missing in games and I feel he might end up being as largely ineffective there as Meyer has been if used here.

The final wildcard formation I’ve picked is one that has often been suggested by Palace fans but once AWB left has generally been ignored due to the lack of a right-hand side option.

All the rage 20 years ago this formation disappeared almost completely but has had a resurrection and is used by some of the most exciting and progressive teams in the league – Wolves in particular manage to play 3 centre backs while still accommodating an exciting winger. There’s little doubt that Van Aanholt could flourish as a left wing back and if Ferguson could offer the same on the other flank we could banish worries of a slow and cumbersome pair of centre backs by simply adding another one.

Eze would fit in here ahead of the other two more defensive midfielders and provided we were able to get on the front foot he should get plenty of the ball and also have plenty of passing options made available. However, as a formation that doesn’t start with a 4, I’m not sure it’s something Roy would ever contemplate but should things change then there is definitely some merit in considering it.

In summary, we certainly have the personnel to allow us to play formations that will allow Eberechi Eze to play in a position that suits him and allows us to get the most out of him. The biggest question is whether we have a manager who is flexible enough to play one of those formations.

Crystal Palace's transfer activity is, from everything that's been reported so far, focused almost exclusively on the recruitment of attacking players, addressing the stark need for goals in a side that scored one of the lowest tally of goals last season.

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Palace have announced the capture of the highly-rated and massively exciting prospect Eberechi Eze from QPR on a five-year deal, but what can Eagles fans expect from him?

We went to someone who knows him well and asked Clive Whittingham from the excellent QPR blog Loft For Words for the inside scoop on Eze and whether he can make the step up to the Premier League...

Who knows if he'll make the step up? Impossible to tell with these things, but he's got all of the physical attributes, he's got his head screwed on, and he's more talented than just about anything I've seen come out of this league for many a year so he's got every chance. He's certainly better now than James Maddison was when Leicester took him from Norwich. Kalvin Phillips just made the England squad and Eze took the bloke to school at Loftus Road this season when we beat Leeds. It was actually quite embarrassing for the lad, he got sent off in the end. Bless.

The good stuff. He scores all kinds of goals at a frequency of between one every four or five games, and he doesn't play up front. You'll find him arriving late in the box for a few six yarders, you'll see him pop the odd one in from outside the area, he's got an immaculate volley on him, and he has an ability to go past two, three or four players at a time and finish at the end of that. He assists and is involved in goals far more frequently than the official stats let on. I find the reporting of Championship assists to either be incredibly harsh or downright lazy, so we do our own and review it on video afterwards and we had him down for 14 last season to go with his 14 goals.

Some of them (Nahki Wells v Cardiff) show a vision far beyond what you normally get in a Championship player. He's durable, despite being kicked from pillar to post he was our only Championship ever present last season and played in 42 out of 46 league games the season before. He's strong, and beautifully balanced, so he's very difficult to knock or bully off the ball. He's deceptively quick, and all of that combines into him just sort of ghosting and gliding past players. His first touch is pure sex.

The bad stuff. Not much. I've never seen anybody quite as bad at heading the ball. There was a perception that he was a bit lazy and didn't work hard enough defensively in his earlier days at QPR but that's certainly, palpably not the case now he's got 120+ games under his belt and personally I thought that criticism was completely unfounded in the first place. A combination of a young player being overused and tiring quite early in his career, and dare I say the sort of criticism that often gets chucked the way of young black players with a slightly languid style.

READ MORE: The Eze facts and figures that show how good he was for QPR in 2019/20

Fitting him into a team will be the thing. We play 4-2-3-1 and he can play anywhere across the three, most effectively on the left and cutting infield onto his right foot. Good examples of him scoring against Blackburn H, assisting against Derby H and winning two penalties at Hull doing this last season if you want to look up the highlights. Actually, just watch this. Ridiculous afternoon...

He's good playing deeper to the left of a target man striker (Jordan Hugill for us last season) and linking up with another ball player at 'ten' (Ilias Chair for us). He can of course play ten himself with wingers either side. We found our most effective method last year was to stick Bright Osayi Samuel (who clubs should also be looking at more than they are) wide on the right and Eze wide on the left which meant defensces got stretched and couldn't double up on the pair of them. If you were to try and play him deeper, or conventional central midfield... I don't know, not sure it could work.

MORE: Crystal Palace Transfer Activity Pivots to Address Goal Drought

Other stuff you should know... He got booted out of Arsenal, Millwall, Reading and Fulham's academies before we picked him up. All the usual bullshit about laziness and not working hard enough and not complying with whatever genius system their jumped up U16 coach was trying to play. Very God fearing, expect bible passages on Instagram and a lot of "all glory to God" stuff, so hopefully no Harry Maguire-style summer holidays to worry about. Always comes across really well, very humble and polite in interviews. And his younger brother, who could be his twin brother to look at them and watch them play, is currently doing bits in our U18s so hopefully there'll be another cab off the rank for us to enjoy soon.

And remember that unlike Benrahma, Pereira, Watkins and the other Championship players getting linked with moves, he's been doing it in quite a poor QPR team. We're a really difficult club to play for, and he's stood out as the outstanding talent in the division despite that.

You've got a gem. Beautiful player. So enjoyable to watch. Cheap at the price.

Just don't do that thing where you try him in a couple of League Cup games, give him an hour playing defensive midfield with James Mcarthur in some 4-0 surrender away from home, then loan him out to fcking Stoke or some sht like that. Honestly, we'll find out where you live and somebody will get hurt.

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There were several times in the last few weeks when I became thoroughly ashamed of my club. Was it the eight game run of defeats? No. Was it the black lives matter pronouncement? No! Was it the ongoing commitment to our current manager? No!!!! Was it the inability to sign a new player within a week of the window opening? NO!!!!! Those kits? NOOOOOO!!!!!

It was the constant volley of negativity linked to each of the above from our fans on social media.I began to dread even looking at the comments under a club ‘happy birthday’ message for Roy lest I’d be left feeling like we’d just lost 0-1 at home to a breakaway on the 89th.

First, the obligatory warning. I’m 58 years old, which means that what follows will come with both perspective and context, both of which appear to be concepts unknown to the get-rich-quick / immediate-gratification / everybody-can-be-a-DJ generation. Those under 30 may well want to look away and not come back.

Secondly, the facts. We’ve just finished fourteenth in the most competitive league in the world. That was our seventh consecutive season in the Premier League. We reached an FA Cup final during that period. The word ‘literally’ is commonly misused, but this was LITERALLY the best decade ever to be a Palace fan. Fact.

LISTEN: FYP Podcast Extraaa | Transfer special with Dom Fifield

It’s my contention that the ubiquity of social media plus the opportunity to know far more about the world game has coincided in a very unfortunate manner with our current success, creating a new breed of fan for whom nothing can ever be good enough. Of course, one answer could be ‘avoid social media’, and, granted, when I see my mates pre-match at the Victory, or when we chat to the fellas next to us in Block Z, I am reminded of what the real Palace is all about, but, unfortunately, supporting your club in the 2020s is no longer about the Croydon Advertiser, Club Call and the match programme; Twitter, Facebook, podcasts and websites are unavoidable if you want to keep on top of things.

Yes, we lost eight in a row. After a performance at Bournemouth that had BBC pundits tipping us as dark horses for Europe. With an ageing squad who, after the weirdest 3 months any of us will ever know, just wanted a break. With a star player we all know is leaving. With absolutely no fear of relegation. Get that - no fear of relegation! Even six years ago, we would have dreamt of it. Lots of the football before that was dull, granted. But we won at Old Trafford. We drew at the Etihad and Emirates. We beat the Weed away. We actually tore Chelsea apart at home during lockdown. Both West Ham wins were such great fun There were some great performances amongst the mediocrity. Fourteenth is really OK for Palace. Back in 2014, fans were crying out for us to become the new Bolton, or Stoke. We have!

Roy Hodgson is a hugely capable manager. Who says so? Pep Guardiola. He was outhought yet again at the Etihad in January, and he knows what a great organiser and tactician our boss is. He’s conservative, which is a weakness, but also a strength. The opprobrium the poor man receives on Twitter is just staggering after the incredible job he has done for us. ‘Get someone younger in!’ is the cry. To be fair, any new appointment will, de facto, be younger, but what does this mean? De Boer was younger, for sure. I saw calls for Wagner after Udders went down, and Farke this year. They’re engaging, young, and German, great. Does what they’ve actually done in the PL suggest that they’re serious alternatives to Roy? The FDB experience showed how dangerous it is to mess with DNA. We are Palace, a scruffy little club from a scruffy corner of SE London, punching way above our weight. How else should we be playing? We’ve always been a direct side with pace. Changing that would take years, and those years would almost certainly include relegation. No manager gets that time any more. For what it’s worth, I think Dyche is a perfect Palace man. And yes, the Twitterati will hate him. But remember what it felt like under Pulis when we couldn’t be beaten? I loved that.

TRANSFER TRACKER: Eze, Sarr, Fraser, Watkins and all the others linked

Nothing stirs the ire like new signings, or, should I say, lack of. But the hypocrisy here is staggering. Can you imagine if any other PL club’s top scoring player of the year had cost £2.5m? Our keyboard warriors would be aflame. ‘Typical! Why can’t we ever unearth these gems!?’. I walked out of the Etihad with my City mate, and a couple of their season-ticket holders, seeing my scarf, came over and congratulated me on our showing; ‘tell you what, we should have snapped at that Cahill - better than any centre-half on our books’. Even the £3m for McCarthy gave us that bite and shithousery in the middle we hadn’t seen since Cabaye. And, of course, the name that united the FIFA players in ecstacy, Max Meyer, has turned out to be palpably unsuited to the English game. ‘Why don’t we build our team around him?’ goes up the cry. Because he gets knocked off the ball every single time he tries anything other than a sideway pass. A bold move, but a poor one. Yes, we need youth. Yes, we need some excitement up front. But if you throw in Guaita, you’d have to say last summer was remarkably good business.

The new kits are plain. As an ageing mod, I like plain. I happen to think that the white away top is so plain, and at the same time stylish, that I’d consider wearing one myself. The response to the kit launch verged on parody. ‘Disgraceful’, ‘disgusting’, ‘dreadful’ ‘appalling’ were just some of the adjectives wheeled out within nano-seconds of the release. In the age of shadow stripes, fades and zigzags, it’s not going to be appearing in any Just Look At These anthology. But amongst all the bullshit that manufacturers come out with, for me it’s quite refreshing that we don’t have a ‘unique graphic representing the cultural history of Thornton Heath with a jerk chicken motif’ making up our red and blue. And, fans of ‘something different’, just have a look at Watford’s top for 20-21 and revel in plainness.

Beneath all this optimism, I am, of course, a football pessimist. As a South Londoner with no family football history exiled in Devon in the early 70s, I chose Palace as my club aged 9. We were promptly relegated two years in a row. I first got to see the Palace in a cup tie at Home Park in 1975. We were 2-1 down, then got a penalty in the dying minutes. Up stepped our most reliable midfielder, and missed. His name? Terry Venables. The next year, from the third division we got to the Cup semi. And lost. So I don't expect too much from this club. I want to meet my family and friends for a few drinks, then go and support a team that competes. I think my favourite Mr Angry Tweet before my much-needed cull was ‘if Meyer’s not in the team, I’m done with this club’. ‘Done’. There’s a word that separates the supporter from the fan.

Criticism is healthy. Podcasts would be pretty tedious without differences of opinion. But please, please, please, can we not forget where we came from, and who we really are, and in the midst of that, never forget that the answer to almost no question is black or white. Perspective and context aren’t that difficult to uncover, really. I’m down to a very few #CPFC followers on Twitter now, and just ignore comments on Facebook, because it just makes me feel better about a rare something that is in my life to bring joy, and that’s how I want it to stay. There really are some worse things going on in the world than the red stripes on our new shirt not reaching the shoulder.

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