Crystal Palace Fan View: Eagles must be optimistic despite Everton loss

Crystal Palace fell to defeat after a six-minute spell in the opening minutes of the second half saw Everton take the game away from us as they tore into a 2-0 lead. Two turned into three midway through the half, and while that wasn’t a fair reflection on a fairly even game in terms of chances – we actually registered more attempts on goal – it was a reflection on how clinical we were with them.

Hesitation by Timothy Fosu-Mensah cost us the first goal and some other defensive lapses contributed to Everton turning a single-goal lead into three. Crystal Palace had chances too, Christian Benteke had at least two chances with his head, Sorloth drew a couple of saves from Pickford and there were a number of efforts from the edge of the box that stung Pickford’s hands.

However, one defeat to Everton doesn’t mean everything is lost. There are positives to take, and factors to be considered before we start with the doom and gloom all over again…

Everton v Crystal Palace: How the match unfolded

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Sorloth performance encouraging

One positive we should take was the performance of debutant Alexander Sorloth. He showed nice touches, a fantastic work-rate and was involved in some promising moves. Had Pickford had an off day, he would have scored and on a personal level, that would have been the perfect debut. Christian Benteke’s struggles in front of goal remain unabated, but Sorloth’s performance on Saturday gives us hope that there is an alternative now that Bakary Sako has been ruled out.

This could be the answer once Wilfried Zaha returns to the squad, because Sorloth brings similar qualities to Benteke in general play, but frankly looks sharper in the box and more likely to put one away.

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What’s next for Crystal Palace?

It’s very easy to be wise after the fact, but Crystal Palace’s injury list has grown further this week and leaves us looking even shorter than last week. Julian Speroni has been ruled out for the remainder of the season, along with the resurgent Bakary Sako, and Wilfried Zaha is likely to miss three or four games after he picked up an injury last weekend against Newcastle. Losing Zaha for a month is disappointing, but Speroni’s injury could prove more telling as it leaves us with just one senior goalkeeper.

What’s worse is that these injuries have come to a head just as we’re heading into a difficult few games. We play four of the top five in the next six games and will do so without several key players. No Scott Dann, Mamadou Sakho remains out, Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s return isn’t imminent and now we can add Wilfried Zaha to the list. Once we do that last one it leads me to a worrying statistic – we haven’t won without Zaha since 2016.

It’s this ‘perfect storm’ of injuries that means we need to mentally write-off Saturday’s game, and head into the Tottenham clash with an open mind. We put out a reasonably strong side against Everton, but there was nobody to turn to when the going got tough and we could have done with changing things. Criticising the transfer policy is fair game, but ultimately criticism is academic at this stage of the season – we can’t change anything now.

Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool are free swings. It’d be fantastic if we picked up some points but it isn’t going to be the end of the world if we come away pointless from all three, even if that sees us drop into the relegation zone. The key period comes after the international break when hopefully a few players have recovered from injury and we can have a real go at some very winnable games.

For now, we need to simply keep soldiering on.