Crystal Palace (H) Post Match Thread

That penalty miss has not helped and he needs to buck up and start delivering.
Affraid to take on his man. Offered very little in the time he was on the pitch . I counted one ball into the box from Mahrez in 25mins. Gundogan aside from the goal was also pretty anonamous. Walker had a poor game. Truth is we are pretty clueless when David or KDB are absent against a defensively well drilled side. Pep had an off day and a poor game, we needed creativity in midfield and KDB needed to be brought on at HT.
 
Credit to Palace. They had a game plan which worked well today. When we attacked, they doubled up on Sterling and Sane and consequently we rarely got behind them out wide; they also deployed a third man just inside these two ‘defenders’ to cut off any balls played inside to a runner. We were therefore forced a lot of the time, even in the last frantic 20 minutes, to play balls back to the edge of the box and to whip in crosses which, for the most part, were defended well. (Admittedly our first goal came from such a cross.) Collectively and individually we were not at it today: predictable, pedestrian and lacking movement and ‘fizz’. There were also too many individual mistakes (a feature which has become all too frequent in the last few games) and the defending leading up to all three goals was poor. There’s little any team can do about a wonder strike like Townsend’s but the ball should have been cleared much more decisively in the first place. Let’s hope this acts as a wake-up call.

Could also add that we tried too many slow looping dink balls into the box which their keeper hoovered up with ease. Pointless when your attackers are all short.
 
Last edited:
Had that 'we were on our Xmas night out last night' feel to it. Because David has been so majestic, the absence of Kevin hasn't been quite so noticeable. But David then gets injured as well and you notice it. When Kevin came on today we instantly had more authority.

When David plays, he plays the ball on the half turn for Raheem and Leroy to run onto (later in the phase of play), but when he doesn't play, Raheem and Leroy receive the ball earlier and deeper and often end up going sideways and not playing to their strengths.

Pep can't be happy with the number of spongey crosses and floated lobs into the box that the Palace CBs just headed or hoofed away. Why hit balls like that to our small strikers ? Today, our normal slick, fast and accurate passes didn't materialise. In some ways it's hard to complain - days like this are rare.

In truth, I thought Palace played well.

On the flip side, how would Liverpool cope without VvD, Salah or Firmino for half a season ? Mahrez scores that pen, and Pickford doesn't flap the ball to Origi and things are very different.
 
Delph should of been in there and Zin at left back.... the stones/Laporte partnership has looked solid all year, if they’re fit, it should pick itself imo..

Pep is only human, he won’t get everything right and hindsight is a wonderful thing, he’d of thought that starting line up was enough and we all would of agreed pre flop, it just didn’t get going today but he will get it right 99% of the time!

As soon as I saw the line up I said to my pals there’ll be trouble mate.

It wasn’t Pep getting it wrong or it not quite working out, it was sheer ‘it’s only Palace at home’ complacency.

I also didn’t see that ‘fuck this we’re not having these ****s take the piss’ mentality of last season. The desire, drive and sheer refusal to not get beat just wasn’t there.

Bizarre considering we were 4 points behind.
 
Two or three players having a bad day. What I will say is that Kyle, despite having a bad day at the office, kept trying to hit that crossfield pass - the crossfield pass that's in Pep's DNA and often delivers goals by switching the play.
 
How do you see them dropping more than 5 points mate.

problen is last season apart from the home game they had our measure. I don’t think the title is over but it’s gonba be hard to retain it

This is nonsense. We destroyed them in the CL 2nd leg and would have won handsomely but for a crooked ref. And we were the better side at Anfield this year.
 
Went straight from the match to the fight and haven’t read a word of this thread or seen any reaction but no doubt the flappers are panicking. Calm the fvck down.

We didn’t play great and we haven’t done for weeks but most days we win that game. 2 great strikes, the second a goal of the season type effort go in and all of a sudden we’re chasing a game where we’re low on energy and missing key players. Palace were really solid and ran tirelessly - credit to them. The third sort of killed us off but we kept coming although it always looked like one of those days.

Kev played really well and if he stays fit we win the league with something to spare. Bernard ran his socks off and Gundo kept us ticking but we had no real penetration.

Jesus isn’t good enough and needs replacing. Mahrez needs more time I guess, he shows bits of quality but never seems to impose himself on a game. Seems like £60m doesn’t buy you a winger who can beat a man these days which is a problem as fullbacks quickly suss that he’s always gonna check back and cross it from 20 yds out rather than get to the byline as do the centre halfs who ready themselves to head it away easily, untroubled by our tiny strike force

Ref was a fvcking disgrace. Let their keeper take the piss timewasting all game then makes the pitifully token gesture to book him in injury time and adds insult to injury by strolling 40 yds towards him to show him the card thus wasting another fvcking minute.
 
The team worked well until the rags game. Since then:
- No support from fullback wingers (lost Mendy for injury and so Kyle Walker)
- Disturbed the harmony between Stones and Laporte by introducing Otamendi who's been shaky since his game against Spain
- Fernandinho
- What happened to B.Silva we know ?
- We need a real striker, and Aguero always drops in pace and injured in christmas period.

So as said Pep, we're not recruiting players in January... Good luck for us without a fresh midfieldand defending wingers.
 
The team worked well until the rags game. Since then:
- No support from fullback wingers (lost Mendy for injury and so Kyle Walker)
- Disturbed the harmony between Stones and Laporte by introducing Otamendi who's been shaky since his game against Spain
- Fernandinho
- What happened to B.Silva we know ?
- We need a real striker, and Aguero always drops in pace and injured in christmas period.

So as said Pep, we're not recruiting players in January... Good luck for us without a fresh midfieldand defending wingers.
No team signs new players bcoz existing
ones are tired or out of form, it doesn't happen that way.
 
Its flakey at the moment. 8 games without a clean sheet says that. We need to tighten up and start taking the chances we get although today I agree, we didn't look like scoring at 3-1 down until the last 10 mins. If you concede 3 goals in any match, 9/10 you lose.



That sub was baffling. Sterling whilst not being at his best was at least starting to run at people and Mahrez has shown nothing this season to say he was going to change things.

We were a bit out of shape at 3-1 down with the subs and tactical changes. Not Peps finest day but even then he couldn’t legislate for Walker having a complete shocker

Some of those subs seem pre-planned. KDB was always going to get that amount of minutes etc.
 
I think a lot of posters called it before the season started, no cover for Fernandinho would eventually bite us on the ar@e. I can understand pep thinking if he doesn’t get his target (Jorginho) then he will not settle for second choice. We had won the league by 19 points and he can switch players (could Delph not do that job?). I still think we will the league (i’m not sure we will I just think we will!) but it will be very frustrating if we failed to retain it yet again.
 
What we lacked yesterday, apart for the injured players or ones trying to get match fitness, is the type of player Pep was after and didnt get.

That being said, Kyle Walker was poor. Gundogan is`nt Dave or Kev. John Stones isnt Fern.

The biggest concern to me is how many attempts we need to score compared to our opponents.
 
Frustrating day obviously.

Few observations from me.

Atmosphere was poor which does not help.

Mendy being injured and Danilo has had a huge impact. Walker is shattered and Delph is simply cover and not top drawer. We badly miss silva. Can’t wait to watch de Bruyne second half of the season.

Desperate for us to defend our title and think we will if we win the next 3 games. To be 1 behind with 17 games left would be ok.

And ederson needs to make more saves for me.
I agree with all of that except the Ederson bit, there was no stopping those three goals. It more about preventing goals 1 and 3 in the first place, goal 2 is just one of those once every season sort of goals, on its own we would have still got the three points. We are not getting clean sheets anymore but it is not Ederson’s fault it is to do with the quality of chances we are conceding, it is a bit like Pep’s first season all over again.
 
our* midfield

Seems like you enjoy my posts quite a bit
You only started posting two weeks ago and you make a mistake like that, people are going to be suspicious. I hope you are not a non-blue but if you are you will be sussed out (not by me I am not diligent!)
 
I agree with all of that except the Ederson bit, there was no stopping those three goals. It more about preventing goals 1 and 3 in the first place, goal 2 is just one of those once every season sort of goals, on its own we would have still got the three points. We are not getting clean sheets anymore but it is not Ederson’s fault it is to do with the quality of chances we are conceding, it is a bit like Pep’s first season all over again.

Watch the build up leading to goal 2. Very preventable and that’s not even mentioning the shit header by Silva which put it straight on a plate for him. It was a great goal but our efforts in the passage of play before it were pathetic and indirectly led to that goal.

1/3 were just rank bad defending.
 

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top