Time running out for Taylor

14 April 2012

By the ruthless standards of the Championship, Peter Taylor is lucky still to be at Crystal Palace.

In a division in which six managers have been sacked since the start of the season, and a further nine clubs changed their boss in the first half of 2006, Taylor has survived, despite a dismal run of just two wins in 14 games.

Palace lie 17 points adrift of the second automatic promotion place which was their stated ambition in August - with only a six-point advantage over the bottom three - and have served up some of the worst football at Selhurst Park in a decade.

Moreover, his chairman Simon Jordan has had six managers in six years since taking the club out of administration and is not a man normally associated with virtues such as patience and forgiveness.

Yet there are key reasons why Taylor was always going to be given longer than some of his predecessors.

First, the glowing references he has earned as England Under-21 manager, where he has earned praise for his coaching of young players.

Second, the fact he is still revered by Palace fans for his spell at the club as a player from 1973-77.

Third, and most importantly, because Jordan is in the midst of a legal dispute with Iain Dowie over the manner of the former manager's departure, in which the Palace chairman does not want to be portrayed as someone who sacks his bosses rashly.

So Taylor has been granted time to turn things around, although Sportsmail understands things may change very rapidly should the club fall into the bottom three.

The availability of Alan Pardew, who was far less popular as a Palace player than Taylor but has an impressive managerial record in the Championship, puts additional pressure on the current incumbent.

It is not overstating the case to say that the flurry of festive fixtures could not only determine Taylor's Palace future, but his managerial reputation.

Admired for his work with the Under-21s and successful at Gillingham, Brighton and Hull - each of whom he guided to promotions, two successive ones in Hull's case - Taylor's cv has an ugly stain in the shape of Leicester, where he was sacked after spending £23m on a team which eventually dropped out of the Premiership.

The danger for him is that things are following the same pattern at Palace as they did at Leicester.

Again backed in the transfer market, his summer signings have largely been a disappointment, the £2.5m on barrel-chested striker Shefki Kuqi and £1m on blunder-prone goalkeeper Scott Flinders looking especially wasteful.

Taylor has had a series of rows with senior players, including Kuqi, Michael Hughes and Clinton Morrison, and many of them could not fathom why it took until November for director of football, Bob Dowie, to follow his brother out of the club.

At Under-21 level Taylor has encouraged a counter-attacking style based on the pace of players like Theo Walcott, Gabriel Agbonlahor and Ashley Young; in contrast, as a club manager, he has tended to pack his teams with tall, functional battlers like Leon Cort and James Scowcroft. The only thing worse than a losing team is a boring losing team.

That Jordan is starting to lose his temper was clear from a warning issued yesterday to the club's five strikers, two of whom were signed by Taylor. "We have £7million of talent up front. Name another team in the division with that level of financial worth in their strikers," Jordan said. "We have Kuqi, Morrison, Dougie Freedman, Jamie Scowcroft and Jon Macken coming back from loan at Ipswich.

"But I don't think for a minute that we've been playing particularly well. Our strikers have got to get their boots on and score goals.

"They've got to perform or we'll exchange them for ones who can perform."

The last sentence might apply equally to the manager.

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