Crystal Palace Fan View: Fortunate to beat Stoke, but who cares?

Loftus Cheek provides key contribution

After Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s dazzling performances for England, I said that to reach the next level he needed to translate dominating performances into match-changing ones for Crystal Palace. In the first few games of the season his displays were impressive, the way he drove at defences, his power and physicality clearly displayed but his contribution was missing something. A goal.

Last weekend he played a vital role in the opening goal, it was his deflected shot that McArthur scored from and this weekend he went one better, notching the equaliser. You can’t underestimate the implication on the rest of the match by equalising so quickly, especially for a team that’s struggled to win this season. There was no time to ponder over the goal, and the fact we were losing an important game, at home. Again.

Loftus-Cheek’s performance overall was nothing special, we’ve certainly seen better from him. His contribution, however, was vitally important and that’s what he must continue.

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Three points we perhaps didn’t deserve

For what seems like weeks I’ve been clutching at straws, picking the good performances from the disappointing results. We should have beaten Everton, our second half performance could have been enough to beat West Ham and we could even have got something against Tottenham. Ironically, if there’s one game out of the last few we didn’t deserve to win, it was probably this one.

Our goal difference demonstrates where our weaknesses have stemmed from this season. We’ve conceded 26 goals already, but against Stoke, it was the striker’s turn to struggle. We haven’t been prolific by any means, and have only scored 8 goals all season, but we’ve looked dangerous when players like Zaha and Townsend got on the ball.

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Yesterday that wasn’t really the case. We gave the ball away too easily, Zaha was quiet throughout and Townsend, though busy, didn’t contribute too much. We were also extremely fortunate that Ryan Shawcross was the man on the end of that chance, as opposed to literally any other player.

A battling performance, but we’ve seen better in recent weeks and it could very well have ended differently.

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Time to drag ourselves out of trouble

Four points from the last two games isn’t a bad return, but it remains just the start of our escape from trouble. There’s no use patting ourselves on the back quite yet, we’re still bottom and remain three points (and some considerable goal difference) off West Brom in 17th.

A trip to Brighton on Tuesday beckons, which is a game that really could go either way. Like I said earlier in the week, I don’t think it matters too much for Crystal Palace, at least not any more than Saturday’s game against Stoke or next weekend’s game against West Brom. 3 points from the next couple of games is a minimum, but it doesn’t really matter where they come from.