The lowdown on Crystal Palace 1 Arsenal 5 – Chalk this off as a bad day at the office

BY ALEX PEWTER

Crystal Palace’s positive run of Premier League form ended abruptly with a 5-1 loss to Arsenal on Saturday.

Here is the lowdown on the game.

THE LINE-UPS

Crystal Palace: Henderson, Richards, Lacroix, Guehi, Clyne (Kporha 81), Hughes (Devenny 69), Lerma (Doucoure 68), Mitchell, Sarr, Kamada (Nketiah 61), Mateta (Schlupp 81). Subs not used: Turner, Ward, Chalobah, Agbinone.

Arsenal: Raya, Timber (Merino 86’, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly (Calafiori 58), Odegaard, Partey, Havertz (Rice 58), Saka (Trossard 25), Martinelli, Jesus (Nwaneri 86). Subs not used: Neto, Kiwior, Tierney, Jorginho.

SNAPSHOT OF THE GAME

The man who haunted Crystal Palace on Wednesday continued his newfound scoring streak, even if that’s exclusively against the South London team. Gabriel Jesus, after a hat0trick on Wednesday, walked off at half-time with a brace to his name – with Kai Havertz the other scorer.

In a back-and-forth opening 45 minutes, while individual players had good, if isolated, moments, Arsenal were all over the Palace team as a defensive unit. Each of the three first-half goals was littered with errors.

This isn’t to say that the home team wasn’t in the contest – Ismaila Sarr struck back soon after the initial Jesus goal with an excellent run and low finish from the edge of the area. Jean-Philippe Mateta had an excellent chance at 2-1, which you would expect him to put past the keeper on most occasions.

The second half started brighter for the Eagles. David Raya was forced into a decent double save against Sarr, but the away team soon added to their lead. Another defensive lapse, this time Maxence Lacroix played Martinelli onside to finish from close range.

From there, the game essentially fizzled out. Glasner made all five changes available to him, but the outcome was only two blocked shots in the final 30 minutes of the game.

The cherry on top from an Arsenal perspective was a fifth goal from Declan Rice.

TACTICAL APPROACH

Whatever the plan, it’s clear that it didn’t work. The Arsenal team that had rotated midweek had the full strength of talent on the pitch at kick-off this time. Defensively the team lacked the intensity they have displayed in recent weeks. Whereas Brighton were contested whenever they neared the Palace area in last weekend’s match, the same couldn’t be said of this display.

Arsenal players were often open, allowing the away team to make progressive passes to players in space, particularly after they were in a comfortable lead.

It’s probably best to write this match and scoreline off as a particularly bad day at the office, and an outlier in terms of how a ‘Oliver Glasner’ team has often played of late.

STAR MAN

Ismaila Sarr. His recent form has been a real force in Glasner’s team and his pace was arguably the only effective threat the team mustered on an otherwise crushingly disappointing evening. It’s possible that is he is the only player that comes away with any real credit in the bank from the match.

BEST MOMENT

Sarr’s goal. An inside pass from the left flank from Tyrick Mitchell found Sarr in space, and with a lot of work to do. Sarr had the Arsenal defence backpedalling as he ran at the area, and his early shot appeared to catch them off-guard. A low curling effort that nestled in the bottom right corner.

MOAN OF THE MATCH

It’s difficult to isolate this to a single moment or aspect of the match. The entire defensive unit collapsed under the weight of Arsenal pressure.

There was one change in the back trio – Chris Richards replaced Trevoh Chalobah, the usual occupant of the right centre-back role, with Nathaniel Clyne starting in the right wing-back role.

This was an entirely atypical Glasner performance, second best in many of the contests. The analysts will be able to pick apart many of the goals with multiple errors.

It was also a difficult outing for Dean Henderson, the saviour in goal a week ago. He will be disappointed with his overall performance even if preventing one or two of the Arsenal goals would have done nothing to the result.

TALKING POINT DOWN THE PUB

The January transfer window. If there was a lingering fear upon leaving the Amex a week ago, it was that the performance there and in other recent games would shroud the need for more arrivals next month.

This isn’t to say that Palace don’t have good players or are completely devoid of bench options, but the balance is off.

This is the first league game in which the team has been truly outplayed and exploited—but without Eberechi Eze, who himself has been in mixed form, and Daniel Munoz down the right, the team’s approach is one-dimensional.

WHAT THE BOSS HAD TO SAY

“In football, sometimes it’s crazy. When I compare the performance in the first-half, to [how we played at] the Emirates [in the EFL Cup], it was far better today. But we were 3-1 down, and over there we had the lead, so it’s crazy because I thought we did many things well. We created chances but the result is disappointing. In the box, there were too many times where we watched the players.”

PICTURES: KEITH GILLARD