Despite Peter Taylor's wishful pre-match talk of a late, late surge for the play-offs, his side simply rolled over and gave up on Saturday.
Tudgay's late winner for Sheffield Wednesday capped a Palace season that has never threatened more than dull mediocrity, and ensured the Eagles' eighth Selhurst capitulation of the season.
Only once in the last 25 years have Palace lost more home games at this level, with 11 defeats on our own ground during Alan Smith's disastrous 2000/01 campaign.
With promotion-chasing Wolves, Preston and Derby the three teams still to visit SE25 this campaign, that sorry record could yet be equalled.
Saturday's 2-1 reverse has forced Taylor to finally admit that his team simply aren't good enough to be troubling this season's play-offs, but the writing was on the wall far earlier. Our dreadful early season form - defined by a run of four straight defeats at Selhurst - had already made this a mission impossible.
In October and November, we lost successive home games to Cardiff, West Brom, Plymouth and Stoke. Only one of those sides - West Brom - are even in the top six.
After that, Palace were always playing catch-up to the teams in the increasingly distant play-off spots - and with no home form to build on, it's no wonder that proved hopeless.
What makes it all the harder to take is that while results at Selhurst have decimated our season, newly-promoted Colchester have won 13 games on their own ground with what is still a League One squad.
The reasons for the difference between the two run deep, but chief among them is Taylor's typical tactic of trying to avoid defeat rather than attack a win.
It's happened too much and against even the most humble opposition, such as when strikers were hauled off when we took a one goal lead at home to Hull. And it's backfired all season, such as when Hull promptly capitalised on their new-found freedom of the park by equalising.
It's a tactic that has left us with six games remaining of the season and nothing left to play for but pride. Now there is nothing left to lose, it is
a tactic that should finally be abandoned. Let the team play with some freedom for the rest of the season and maybe we can see some performances that show what this squad can really do.
