Dull and uninspiring – Crystal Palace’s season is looking set to end on a whimper

ASTON VILLA 2
Trezeguet 45+4, 59
CRYSTAL PALACE 0

BY SAM SMITH

From no angle can you analyse Crystal Palace’s last five fixtures and draw many positive conclusions. This defeat against Aston Villa purely exacerbated problems that were already known.

The positive performance in the last game against Chelsea provided a false hope for an upturn in form. At Selhurst Park against the Blues, Palace’s attacks were cohesive and there was evidence of better movement than there had been in previous fixtures.

Bar a couple of errors and a slice of misfortune, including Gary Cahill injuring his hamstring in the build-up to Olivier Giroud opening the scoring, they defended solidly. None of that could be said for the Eagles’ display at Villa Park.

Twice Palace allowed Trezeguet to ghost into a scoring position unmarked and beat Vicente Guaita. This was a defeat against a Villa side who had won just two top-flight fixtures in 2020 and who had not scored twice in a home game since January. Yet, at no point in this match did Roy Hodgson’s side appear to have any control.

A petulant kick on Ezri Konsa earned Christian Benteke a red card following full-time. The Belgian will now miss the final three games of the season and, having already faced an uncertain future, may have played his final game for the South Londoners.

Many will point to Mamadou Sakho’s early disallowed goal as the turning point, but that would be clutching at straws. The Frenchman met a set piece and the ball went into the net via his shoulder. Jon Moss – overseeing VAR – decided to disallow the goal on the grounds of a non-existent handball.

You could perhaps have some empathy for Moss if the official was not paying absolute attention to a match involving this Palace side. For too long, the football has been dull and uninspiring.

The very basis of sport is to be entertaining. Many will point to the necessity for results in a league where astronomical amounts of money have turned it into a business – but results and playing ultra-conservative football are not mutually exclusive. There are several examples of clubs performing well and still being progressive.

Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers have both been promoted since Palace returned to the Premier League in 2013.

Neither were necessarily better suited to Premier League football upon their promotion than Palace were seven years ago. Both play exciting football, are fun to watch and appear to still be heading on an upward curve.

By the end of this campaign, Wolves will have finished in the top half in both seasons since their promotion in 2018. They qualified for the Europa League last term and are into the last 16. They are likely to qualify again.

Leicester have three top-half finishes, a Champions League campaign and a Premier League title – albeit the latter was a complete miracle. The Foxes still have a chance of Champions League qualification this season, despite a poor run of form since the return of football.

To show for their six campaigns in the top-flight, Palace have a solitary top-half finish in 2015 and a run to the FA Cup final the year after. Supporters are not asking for Champions League campaigns or trophies, they just want to be entertained while the club consistently pushes for the top half.

That happened early on in Hodgson’s reign. Yohan Cabaye, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Wilfried Zaha starred in a team that had miraculously catapulted themselves away from relegation and only goal difference meant they did not finish 10th.

Cabaye and Loftus-Cheek have since departed and have been replaced by ageing, more conservative individuals. Hodgson now regularly deploys a midfield of defensive-minded players who rarely support the front three.

It can hardly be argued that the results have been positive this season and that sacrificing progressive football has been a good decision. There have only been seven victories since October 6. This is Palace’s worst losing sequence since the eight Frank de Boer and Hodgson shared in overseeing in 2017.

Straight defeats in a tough final trio of matches against Manchester United, Wolves and Tottenham Hotspur could consign the Eagles to a very disappointing end to the season.

Palace (4-3-3): Guaita 5, Ward 5, Dann 5, Sakho 5, Van Aanholt 4, McArthur 5 (McCarthy 45 4), Milivojevic 4 (Meyer 75), Kouyate 4 (Riedewald 65 5), Ayew 5 (Townsend 65 5), Benteke 3, Zaha 4. Not used: Hennessey, Woods, Mitchell, Kelly, Pierrick.