Palace's Premier League profligacy
Since promotion to the Premier League in 2013, Crystal Palace have largely been stable - albeit not spectacular.
The Eagles have not finished below 15th in this period, avoiding the stress of late-season relegation battles by accumulating enough points to occupy a position somewhere between 11th and 15th.
However, since Glenn Murray's 30-goal haul in their Championship promotion season just over a decade ago, Palace have lacked the prolific goalscorer needed for fans to dream of more.
Their highest individual goal tally since Murray was Christian Benteke with 15 in 2016-17 - by some distance his best personal return for the club. Talismanic winger Wilfried Zaha found the net regularly before his move to Galatasaray last summer, but the most he managed was 14 in 2021-22 - one of only three seasons where he managed double figures for league goals.
In this time, Palace's top Premier League scorer has twice been then penalty taker Luka Milivojevic and four times been a player who has finished with fewer than 10 goals - Jordan Ayew, Yannick Bolasie, Jason Puncheon and Murray himself.
This season, Odsonne Edouard and key men Michael Olise and Eberechi Eze are tied on six each.
As our pundit Michael Brown wrote earlier on Eze and Olise, who have both missed chunks of the campaign through injury, "they need those two players fit". Without their spark, Palace can look ordinary in attack and they do not have a reliable marksman to rely on in their absence.
New manager Oliver Glasner seems in no danger of taking the Eagles down, but fan discontent over perceived lack of ambition, which really came to the fore in the final weeks under Roy Hodgson, is unlikely to go away unless a number nine is bought in over the summer.
Palace supporters do not expect to be challenging for Europe, but they do want the hope that one day it could be a possibility - and that their ceiling does not always have to be 11th.
Given their financial situation, bringing in a big name may not be plausible, but a man capable of bettering Benteke's 15 goals has to be top priority for the under fire board in the summer transfer window.
