Crystal Palace Fan View: Three talking points from Palace's crucial win over Middlesbrough

Big performances from new signings makes the difference

Patrick van Aanholt scored some important goals in Sunderland’s escape from the drop last season and his goal-scoring ability has already proved decisive for Palace. Between January and the end of last season he scored 5 goals for Sunderland, an impressive return for a full back, and yesterday’s goal took him to 4 for the season already. Since Allardyce has come into the club we have struggled to score in the same manner that we did under Pardew – to have a player as capable as van Aanholt in front of goal that can pick up the odd goal could be the difference.

Prior to Saturday’s game we hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Mamadou Sakho but he introduced himself with style with his display against Middlesbrough. The stand-out moment was the toe poke away from Cristian Stuani which saved a certain goal but overall he was an asset to the Palace defence. He brought a level of composure that hasn’t been present this season and just did the simple things well; he kept the ball well, he was authoritative and like I mentioned there were some key interceptions that ensured we kept a clean sheet.

Fans came together to make Selhurst a cauldron

Watching Crystal Palace at home over the last season has seemed at times to be a pointless exercise with a loss feeling as inevitable as death and taxes. For a club with such passionate fans Selhurst Park is far from a tough place to come for opposition teams – we’ve just lost too many games and the atmosphere has suffered as a result, having a knock on effect on the performances which then has a knock on effect on the atmosphere… repeat until you’ve won just three games at home this season.

Everyone knew the importance of this game in the grand scheme of our season and the fan base came together to create a memorable atmosphere as the Palace players stepped out onto the pitch. The Holmesdale Fanatics were leading the chants at 2:15 as the players came out to warm up and the noise level didn’t drop from then on, growing louder as kick off approached. That wall of noise lasted for the whole 90 minutes and I’m sure made a huge difference to the players. Everyone was understandably despondent after the Sunderland game and it was important for the players to know that the fans were still behind them, the fans still believed in them. Yesterday we pushed each other on to that win.

Perfect start to our 13-game season

I said in my preview that if we picked up more points between now and the end of the season than three of the bottom seven teams we’d stay up and this weekend provided nearly the best set of results we could have hoped for in our ‘mini-league’. Bournemouth, Swansea and Sunderland all failed to pick up a point while we inflicted a loss upon Middlesbrough, with Burnley and Hull taking a point each from their meeting and Leicester facing Liverpool on Monday night.

That makes Palace the only side in the bottom seven to have picked up a win this weekend and it’s a win which lifts us out of the relegation zone at Leicester’s expense. The gap is a mere point to Leicester in 18^th but we’re now level on points with Middlesbrough who will face 10^th placed Stoke at The Potteries next while Palace travel to West Brom. Even Bournemouth in 14^th lay just 4 points ahead Palace now, one more win and we’re firmly on their coat-tails; what a difference a win makes.