Palace (A) | PL | Post-Match Thread

oldius said:
Other than bringing on Manu, what was the change that delivered the utter dominance we saw for large parts of the second half? I couldn't really see a tactical change, but our control was almost absolute.

Regardless, two wins against Villa and Palace is a great start.
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Rodri refocused (as he often does at halftime), Alvarez seemed to have been given orders to stay in the space behind Haaland and only press in that area, rather than running back and trying to win the ball off the Palace midfielders (and often overrunning, which let them break quite a few times in the first half), Akanji played more conservatively on the left than Gvardiol, which made it more difficult for Palace to exploit space on that side, and I think Haaland was told to drop level with Alvarez more and then turn for slanted runs to one post or the other, which kept pulling their back four out of shape, and giving space for Kev (or even Rodri, to run in to.

That all forced them to defend more compactly in the middle (mostly on the edge of their own box) and allowed us to maintain possession and more effectively press to win the ball back in their half if we did lose it.

Just my analysis, anyway.
 
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One Down, Seven to Go...​

One of eight absolutely crucial wins! Stones was the architect of the Palace opener, with a sloppy pass & then being caught the wrong side of the attacker who he couldn’t touch for fear of a sending off.

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We managed to quickly steady ourselves, regain our composure, take complete control of the game & went on to level the score with a fuckin howitzer of a shot from a KDB with something to prove.

Palace were setup in a solid 5-4-1 formation. They targeted Rodri by jumping on him as soon as the ball came near, whilst squeezing the space around him.

This gave Rodders little time to dictate our play from deep, & kept giving Palace turnover opportunities to hit us on the break. We looked seriously vulnerable for it, in spite of our otherwise total control.

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We went in level at the break, but thankfully Rico was well placed to shoot us ahead soon after the restart, giving us a bit of breathing space. I'm seriously made up for Lewis, because he played so well again & had a major impact on our performance.

During the first half, Palace looked like they were juiced up on PED's the way they hunted us down & hounded us. However, they started to wilt from early in the second half as we continued to pull them all over the place.

It always felt like we needed more goals to secure the win, so up steps Super Kev who passed to Grealish, who returned the favour.

However, it was the sheer speed of the stabbed ball to Erling which wrong footed everyone & gave the Viking the chance to steal in ahead of the covering defenders to give us a cushion by scoring our third.

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I thought Bobb needed to impose himself more on the game. He was steady throughout, but began to visibly fade as the second half progressed, & posed less & less of a threat going forward.

Thankfully King Kev received a 70th minute ball from a rapidly improving Grealish to stab home our fourth which essentially sealed the win. Palace made three changes as we also withdrew Rodders, but this change handed the momentum of the game back to Palace, as we became more disjointed with the Eagle's stepping up the pressure.

We became more & more ragged as Palace got their second wind, which led to them halving the deficit with a decent touch from Edouard to finish. Pep was forced to bring on Bernardo to give us more control of the game, which the introduction of Kovacic & Nunes caused us to lose. Where Nunes was supposed to be playing was a mystery to me.

Julian was busy & linked up play reasonably well without being spectacular, with Erling contributing little beyond his goal & a couple of late passes, to help us retain possession. I think Haaland's goal came from his 15th touch of the match.

Without his goal it would've been a low-key return for Haaland, but similar to last season this can be overlooked if he keeps sticking the ball in the onion bag.

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Lewis played an excellent game up until late on where he began to fade a little. He deserves major credit for his last two performances, but I doubt anyone could look beyond King Kevin DeBruyné for MoTM.

I'm pissed we allowed Palace their late goal, because goal difference could prove crucial for the title. Kovacic alongside Rodri gives us a solid base, but Kova as a lone replacement pivot in crucial games like this didn't work today, especially with a physically fading Lewis, who's put in two brilliant performances a few days apart.

We're away to Real on Tuesday & have another must win game at home to Luton next Saturday.

The rest of our season is simple. We can't afford to lose another game, & we've gotta hope both ArseAnal & the Dippers slip up somewhere.

If there's one stark warning we can take from the two games this week, it's that we can't go another season rinsing the fuck out of Rodri. We've got no one to rotate him with, & it's not fair that he gets so little time to rest & recuperate.
 
oldius said:
Other than bringing on Manu, what was the change that delivered the utter dominance we saw for large parts of the second half? I couldn't really see a tactical change, but our control was almost absolute.

Regardless, two wins against Villa and Palace is a great start.
Click to expand...
Ankanji was so much more assured than Guardol.
 
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