Post-match thoughts v Palace

Written by kirsikka

Hello England, this is Helsinki calling. Here are the thoughts of the Finnish jury…

Last week’s defeat came with an encouraging performance so the hope was for more of the same. In honour of the Liverpool festivities, our Ukrainian centre-back was given his full debut and Mepham also came in, perhaps to try and have more pace available to counter Zaha.

Speaking of whom, he was up to his usual tricks. Collapsing even without any contact at every opportunity near the box, as was Ayew. I’ve no idea why the refs buy it so much, it isn’t even convincing.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, the way Zaha made three of our defenders look like clowns when setting up the goal was beautiful and one of the reasons why he’s possibly my least favourite player during our time spent in the PL. He can do things like that but spends far more time falling over trying to win free kicks and NEVER getting booked for diving when he’s the biggest diver in the league by a distance.

He could have been so much more as a player if he’d tried to play the ball rather than win a scholarship to the Juilliard all the time. He’s achieved a lot but I still see him as a wasted talent.

Outside of that, the first half was drab, drab, drab. Back and forth with very little threat from either team. It was the opposite of an end-to-end jaja ding dong match. I hoped that now safety was secured, GON would look to try new things. Maybe go for the throat of an opponent away from home and see what happened. Instead, it was one of his most defensive performances yet. There’s no logic to that. It was so disappointing that we showed no ambition to attack at all. We looked about as likely to score as a singing Irish turkey.

The hope was we’d come out second half and maraud across the pitch like Gengis Khan. Instead, it was more of the same until we let Eze wander past several defenders and bosh it into the net with a strike as perfect as hitting the speorg note.

As for set pieces, Palace took the first two corners short. Are they crazy? However, as soon as they hit them long, as sure as Cyprus giving douze points to Greece, the usual chaos resumed. Some managers think it’s a sign of strength to stick with someone after making your mind up. That’s usually because they have some evidence of that thing working and they hope to get back to it. We have none of that with our set piece defending this season so not making changes is a huge red flag and a sign of weakness in GON as far as I’m concerned.

A special mention for the Lewis Cook free kick with five minutes to go. Did I like that? Ooh aah… just a little bit. Kicking it so far away from the goal wasted at least six extra seconds and stopped Palace scoring a third. I just wonder if we could have tried to get a shot on target though? I’m not an expert, but it seemed like we might have tried.

There was a lack of pace in our game for the whole match. Such a contrast with the commitment shown in recent weeks.

It seems VAR has now graduated from giving every single penalty decision at both ends against us all season and moved on to allowing opposition players to rabbit punch AFCB players in the face. According to the pundit ‘On another day, with a different set of officials that would have been viewed differently”. No. Against any other team, it would have been viewed differently. It’s scandalous now. They aren’t even trying to disguise it anymore. I wonder if this will be covered in the new VAR show on Monday? I hope so. I bet they back the referee though. An utter disgrace.

A word on Lerma. He looked so angry after the punch, I was expecting him to erupt all over the pitch like some kind of volcanic protector man. Instead, he kept a lid on his emotions which was the professional thing to do in the face of blatant cheating.

As easy a win as Palace will ever have, although it should have been a totally different match with Palace down to ten men for most of it.

The only consolation is that Scott Dann didn’t score against us this time. I know he wasn’t playing, but I was still expecting it to happen somehow. In lieu of MotD tonight, I think I’ll fire up YouTube and rewatch some Slavic girls churning butter in time to a rubbish tune. Something that has stayed in my mind for years. I’m pretty sure today’s match won’t.

—– Positive Performances —–

Feels like one way or the other is becoming a habit but I don’t think anyone was anything more than average today so not worthy of a special mention.

—– Room for Improvement —–

Rothwell – Has been excellent of late but we had no control in midfield today and that was a lot down to him not getting his foot on the ball. Instead, he spent the game wandering around like a space man. A day to forget.

Zabarnyi – Ok, this is harsh and probably on me more than him. I was hoping he’d be as solid as a hard rock. Hallelujah! Our defensive issues are solved! Instead, he was ok but still easing himself into the English game. Weak on the second goal. Still, it’s my unrealistic expectation that sees him here so don’t judge him on it. He wasn’t really any worse than any of the others. Or any better. I’m just annoyed.

The Team Ethic – Across the board, it was poor today. Maybe Foley shouldn’t have gone into the dressing room after the Leeds match and promised them all a trip to Vegas at the end of the season. It didn’t look like many of them out there want to go.

—– GON Watch —–

What was that? Seriously. Flatter than a performance from Jemini.

The question still remains as to what kind of manager he wants to be. We’ve opened up in the last couple of months as we desperately chased the points needed. Now we’ve got them and he had a free hand to do what he wanted, he reverted back to extreme defence. Let’s not pretend it was a high-quality Palace team putting us to the sword with a ruthless high press that stopped our attacking game. They were alright but we offered nothing, and so it was tactical on our part. Palace were at least as disinterested as us for half an hour but then realised we seemed to be hoping for a Germany v Austria match at the World Cup and so finally exerted a little effort. And that was that.

GON has done well to change the momentum in some previous matches but it’s a tough thing to do from the sidelines so often. Today it failed. We were horrible. Setting up to be so defensive in this match was as logical as giving a wolf a banana. We’re not a L1 side away to a PL side in the 3rd round of the FA Cup.

What positives can I take from today? Well, we’re safe and that lot up the road are rock bottom. This is where having a rookie as manager is tricky. You have nothing in their history to reference so we’re still learning about him game by game and this was a damning one. The manager of the year talk is utterly preposterous. From the same pundit school of thought that claims Lerma is the creator in our midfield.

So, congratulations. We’re safe. Somebody tell GON and the players the season isn’t over though. Someone also tell GON that he probably won’t last long if his mindset is always going to be defence first except when in dire straits for points.

Summer is coming and another year of PL money. Ker-Cha-Cha-Cha-Ching. Let’s all celebrate by wearing a neon bolero. Still, it’d be nice if we try and play some football again before the season finishes. No euphoria out there today. Absolutely none.

Your say…

Neil Dawson wrote…

Yikes. It’s been a long time since I’ve been that bored at a football game. Tactically out thought from the off… Hodgson shut down our passing lanes to Billing and Christie by sticking a defensive man on each and GON did absolutely nothing about this. Having a centre-back at full-back presumably to counteract Zaha was just mind-blowing in its stupidity and nothing was done about that until late in the second half.

We had to bypass the strangle hold and go long to pace to get the team up the pitch. GON didn’t spot that though and brought on slower players Moore and Brooks than the ones he took off. That just doubled down on Palace control. It was rank, rank amateur coaching. If you can’t have a go at a team when safe when can you. Coaches like this infuriate me people travelled a long way for that dross. Why not play the three at the back that was so entertaining for a couple games?

The only good thing to come out of today is that if we continue to have a flat end to the season it might make the board realise they need a proper coach. Don’t expect this though.

Good performances.
Neto

Bad performances everyone but particularly..
Solanke. Defended him a lot this year but control was embarrassing.
Zabarnyi. Watch back his comedic defending for both goals. We now have the Ukrainian Shaun Maher keeping the Argentinian Broadhurst out the team
Rothwell… back to his early season form
Billing… ghosted it
Mepham… didn’t pass to a Bournemouth player in the first half…

Still. On a positive note. It didn’t really matter. Southampton got relegated and if Lewis’s Cook free kick had just been 100 yards lower it could have been oh so different. – To join the conversation, click here.