James Tomkins insists that Crystal Palace are aiming to finish in the Premier League top 10 this season, per Palace TV via FourFourTwo.
What’s he said?
The Eagles are currently 10th in the table, taking 22 points from their opening 16 games of the season.
They are level on points with both Arsenal and Newcastle United, and are seven clear of the relegation zone, with Southampton in 18th.
And Tomkins has set his sights on finishing in the top half of the table.
He said: “The target is to break into the top half if we can. Last season, we fought long and hard to keep ourselves up and at the end of it, we did pretty well and made a great job of it.
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“But that’s not ideally where we want to be, we want to be in and around the other half of the table.”
Set sights higher
This feels like a bit of a nonsense statement from Tomkins.
Of course, Palace have never finished higher than 10th in the top-flight, achieving that finish in 2014/15.
In the last three seasons, they have finished 12th, 11th and 14th respectively.
And one has to reason that they are absolutely fine with that; they don’t have the ambition to attempt to qualify for the Europa League or even potentially push onto the Champions League.
To say that this team could do the latter, of course, is ridiculous but Wolves, who were promoted just two seasons ago, are already playing European football. Leicester City were promoted and won the league within a couple of seasons.
Did he really play for us?! No Palace fan has managed to name all of these obscure Eagles signings….
Palace, though, are clearly happy with mediocrity, as Tomkins has suggested.
It’s a shame, and it shows why the club can’t take that next step.
Meanwhile, Palace could be set to move for a former Premier League striker.
