Bore draw at Bournemouth: Who’d have put money on that?

Well I think few people would have put money on a 0-0 draw in Palace’s visit to Bournemouth on Saturday but come the end of the season that could represent a very good away point for Palace at the Vitality stadium.

The best chance of the day for Palace fell to the best player on the pitch in a Palace shirt – Damien Delaney. It came from a corner – the ball fell to Delaney who struck it towards the bottom left corner where it was cleared off the line (well nearly off the line). That was followed by a storming run by the centre-half and after wonderfully finding Campbell he woefully blazed it over the bar…. and that more or less sums up Palace’s forward exploits in the whole game.

The worst news to come from the weekend is that Yannick Bolasie & Connor Wickham are likely to be out for around a month and judging by the performance of those that came into replace them, we could have a bit of a struggle on our hands. Campbell and Mutch simply didn’t look good enough and without those two, and Cabaye for a half, we lacked any real incision in the final third – we lacked the panache we have seen before in attack.

Their respective injuries are gutting for them both, but in particular for Wickham who was starting to fit into the team well and while not scoring freely he was contributing to our overall play and was a central lynchpin to the good attacking play we have seen lately. As we saw earlier in the season the replacements in that position have… struggled, and that certainly didn’t change yesterday – if Wickham’s injury problems persist don’t be surprised to see a new striker in January, perhaps on loan.

Pardew spoke, last week I believe, about the need to pick up points here and there by turning losses into draws and looking at the results Palace have achieved it’s hard to disagree with him. Palace have lost more games than the 5 teams beneath them and have only the second lowest amount of draws in the whole league – single points could be the difference between mid-table mediocrity and Europa League football come the end of the season. In my opinion yesterday’s draw represents just the kind of improvement Pardew was looking for, it was Bournemouth who has the better opportunities but it was Palace who held firm and when it became obvious we were unlikely to win the game we held on for a valuable draw away from home at a Bournemouth side who have beaten Chelsea & Manchester United recently.

Overall Bournemouth probably edged the game, but some decent defending on Palace’s part and some poor finishing from both teams ensured that Saturday’s game ended up a goalless draw and will certainly not last long in the memory. Next up is a Swansea side who have struggled in recent weeks but who picked up a valuable win against West Brom on Boxing Day. It won’t be an easy game that’s for sure – Swansea are a better side than their results have shown so far this season – and the absence of Wickham & Bolasie won’t make the job any easier.