Jerome Talks The Talk

Sometimes in a player’s career you just have to take the least worst option on the table, pucker up and make the best of it. Oh, and of course you have to tell the media what you think a new batch of supporters want to hear. So today spare a thought for Jerome Thomas. That’s long enough, he ain’t exactly hit skid row.

Having reportedly been made available on a free by West Brom, Thomas has signed for Palace. The quote on the BBC site is a classic of its kind: “After they got promoted Ollie gave me a call. We had a good talk and after that there wasn’t much doubt in my mind where I wanted to go. I wanted to stay at the top level.” Need we put it another way? ‘At 30 and the clock ticking the chances of a Premiership club coming in for me aren’t great. I’ve had a decent run, never quite hit the heights I might have hoped for at one stage but as football careers go it’s not been bad. OK, it’s only the Premiership for one more season, but I get to go back to the smoke (and I’m sure I can find somewhere to live far enough away from Selhurst, wherever that is).’

Good luck to him, really. I can’t think badly of Thomas, given his role in that midfield (Thomas, Kishishev, Murphy, Smertin, Rommadahl). If he's still with Palace the season after next, and if we don't get promoted, I'll clap rather than boo him on a return to The Valley. 

Just remember Jerome, all things are relative. Lee Martin, released by Ipswich, has to go to Millwall. And of course Scottie Wagstaff has had to take a step back to League One with Bristol City. And before we get too smug, there’s always the reminder from the diary and the TV show based on it of Eamon Dumphy consoling a youngster being let go by Millwall with the words that things could be worse, he’s got to go and play for Charlton.