Crystal Palace Fan View: Four talking points from the draw with Everton

Oumar Niasse competes with Anthony Taylor for biggest villain of the day

It wasn’t a soft penalty, it just wasn’t a penalty.

It looked dodgy at the time, but replays show Niasse’s leg buckling before Scott Dann even made contact with him. The referee got it wrong, Niasse was subsequently vilified but most importantly the complexion of the game was irrevocably changed.

In truth, the referee was poor all day. He increasingly struggled to keep the game in check as the game wore on and failed to penalise Everton for the repeated, unnecessary fouling. When Roy Hodgson is commenting on the referee’s performance and picking up on the huge number of fouls Everton committed (which was 26, by the way) you know that something isn’t quite right.

It’s the referee’s job to discourage and crack down on the very behaviour we saw yesterday, and he failed to do so. Not for the first time this season, Crystal Palace can count themselves hard done by thanks to refereeing decisions.

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Beautiful build-up play a source of encouragement

Yesterday was one of the most dominant performances I have seen Crystal Palace turn in in a long time. Take the goal. Intricate but direct play in midfield saw the ball switched out to Joel Ward who delivered an astonishing ball into the centre for a Wilfried Zaha tap-in.

It was the culmination of a lot of good passing throughout the first half. The fluid attacking trio had exchanged neat combinations throughout the half, keeping the ball very well, but this time the end product was there. If there has been one improvement since Roy Hodgson arrived I think it is our ability to keep the ball and probe much more effectively, we look more controlled in the final third and are no longer solely relying on Wilfried Zaha to pull something out of the hat.

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Speroni & Benteke again demonstrate transfer weaknesses

If our transfer business, or lack of in certain areas, hasn’t already come back to haunt us this season, it did yesterday. I said weeks ago that Julian Speroni wasn’t the answer to our problems and yesterday I was unfortunately proven right. To his credit, Speroni has brought a steadiness to the defensive unit over the last few games, but yesterday the fault for the equaliser lays squarely at his feet.

That blunder proves what I think we all suspected, he is not a realistic long-term solution. Some Premier League squads have four keepers on their books, Crystal Palace have two, one of which is a 38-year-old who surely wasn’t expected to play much part this season. Perhaps that would be fine if we had a young keeper ready to throw into the fray, but sadly we don’t have one of those either.

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As for Christian Benteke, once more he botched a clear-cut chance where he really should have scored. I simply don’t buy into the fallacy that he was ‘rusty’ and that this is an acceptable excuse for missing a sitter. If he’d been banging them in prior to his injury it may hold some water, but it’s exactly the kind of chance he’s been squandering all season long. But who is the alternative?

Two points lost, or a point gained for Crystal Palace?

Definitely the former.

We were in the driving seat after a flying start, before being pegged back by a mixture of amateur dramatics and the referee. After restoring our lead, we were largely coasting, but to concede on the brink of half-time in the manner we did, is hugely disappointing. We then had chances to win the game in the second half but, as has been the case all season, came to regret the missed opportunities.

Once again, I’m sat here ruing what could have been, picking out a few positives from a performance which had many, but from a result which doesn’t reflect that fact. It’s the tale of a missed opportunity and missed points, again. Not a great habit to get into…