Respect the point, that's the Allardyce mantra when you can't nick a win yet keep the opposition at bay, previous WH sides (and Lord knows we have seen many of them) would have been done by the opponents scoring a last min goal and leaving with all 3 points.

I have missed the games versus Southampton and Blackpool so cannot opine on Maynard or Vaz Te in any depth but from what I saw on Saturday I am astounded by the tactic to hit long balls to either when both had very little chance of winning headers or converting any chances from flick ons.

Both players and indeed the core of the team knew they were playing way ahead of Saturdays game and the sessions at Chadwell Heath would or should reflect this. But when the game kicked off it appeared that our most favoured option was to hit long balls to both, as Palace marked Noble very well, Tomkins had more time on the ball than I suspect Sam envisaged, he was thus given the opportunity to use the ball and created chances, something neither he or Diop as defensive midfielders are good at. Consequently with Noble not being able to do what he can do best, Tomkins not being good enough to take advantage of having more of the ball, combined with Collison and Faubert both being ineffective the long ball was the option we tried to death but with the wrong personnel on the pitch.

Hindsight is a beautiful thing, I believe we would have won if Cole and Baldock had started, as at least we started to win those long balls and posed threats in the second half, I think Lansbury for Tomkins would have been a good move late in the game also, (instead of Vaz Te for O'Neill), but as SA's mantra is to respect the point, that would never happen.

If we win our game in hand we go top, so although it was disappointing not to win, keeping things in perspective we are still in the top 2 and favourites for promotion so we must stay positive.