Palace made to suffer with late goals at Goodison Park
By Matt Woosnam
Everton 2
Crystal Palace 0
Two late goals from Everton condemned Crystal Palace to a third successive defeat and left the Eagles firmly planted in the bottom half of the Premier League table.
It was all too familiar to Palace, who made just the solitary substitute with Connor Wickham coming on after Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Cenk Tosun had put the result beyond doubt with goals which came less than two minutes apart.
Marco Silva brought on Calvert-Lewin and Ademola Lookman to try to unlock a defence which had up until then stood firm, but Lookman crossed for his fellow substitute to nod beyond Wayne Hennessey with three minutes of normal time remaining, before Tosun raced onto a long ball to slot through Hennessey’s legs shortly after to cap a miserable afternoon on Merseyside.
The first noteworthy opportunity of the game fell to the hosts on 27 minutes when Gylfi Sigurdsson played a delightful one-two with Seamus Coleman down the right, but his fierce strike was well saved by Hennessey.
James Tomkins may have been given the benefit of the doubt early on when he appeared to push Richarlison to the ground as the last man, albeit some distance from goal, with Anthony Taylor unerring in his decision not to award a free-kick or punish the defender in any way.
Wilfried Zaha suddenly became involved when Palace looked to counter, but failed to get anywhere as a result of Idrissa Gueye limiting his progress by pulling his shirt. The midfielder was subsequently shown a yellow for his misdemeanour.
With just over 10 minutes until half-time, Andros Townsend delivered a cross to the back post but Tomkins could only glance his header wide of Jordan Pickford’s goal – partially inhibited by his teammate Mamadou Sakho’s presence.
The Eagles settled into a rhythm, solid in their two blocks of four and with Zaha and Townsend up front, starting to ask questions of the Everton’s defence.
Luka Milivojevic tested Pickford with a low, fizzing free-kick from range but the England keeper got down well to push the ball round the post. Then Kouyate almost put Palace ahead when he nodded against the crossbar after James Tomkins nodded the resultant corner back into the six yard box.
Everton came out the stronger in the second half and put the Eagles under significant pressure but the defence stood firm, and the Toffees failed to find a killer final pass.
Then came the moment Palace had been looking for. Zaha tricked Seamus Coleman who brought him down inside the area and conceded a penalty. But Milivojevic’s wretched season reached a new low when he hit a woeful spot kick straight down the middle, low, only for Pickford to save with his feet.
The game became stretched and the hosts surged forward but Andre Gomes could only curl an effort wide of Wayne Hennessey’s post on 75 minutes.
It was then left for Silva’s introductions to seize the initiative for his side and leave Palace deep in the mire with a significant number of difficult games coming up.