Crystal Palace Fan View: Free hit for the Eagles as Arsenal come to town

Palace thin on the ground after injuries

Sam Allardyce has said it, I’ve said it and on Wednesday everyone could see it: the back four has been central to our recent success and when forcibly changed the result was disappointing. With both Dann & Tomkins missing Allardyce opted for Kelly to start at centre-half, likely due to his pace advantage over the aging Delaney but the whole combination looked ill at ease. Joel Ward has enjoyed something of a resurgence in the last few weeks alongside the partnership of Sakho and Tomkins but against Southampton, next to Kelly, he was beaten time and time again.

The option of returning to the status quo in defence is sadly not an option for Arsenal’s visit on Monday evening. Significantly, both Dann and Tomkins will miss out but that is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg when it comes to injuries with van-Aanholt, Souare, Cabaye, McArthur, Wickham, Remy & Campbell all either certain or very likely to be missing. Expect the bench to be populated with the liked of Sulley KaiKai and *deep breath* Bakary Sako…

Pressure firmly on Arsenal’s shoulders

Without wishing to sound cliché this is an unequivocal free swing for Palace. If we presume 7 points will secure our status in the Premier League then Leicester, Hull & Burnley will have been earmarked as the places that we simply have to pick up those points. That leaves a home game against Arsenal as an opportunity, albeit a tough one, to take the pressure off with a point or three.

Even including the disappointing performance and result on the South Coast midweek Palace will go into the game on a better run than Arsenal, sitting pretty in 7^th in the form table. Arsenal, after losses at the Hawthorns and Anfield in their last five games they’ve picked up only 7 points from a possible 15 and with that have seen them drop off the somewhat bipolar Manchester City and even Liverpool in the race for a Champions League qualification spot.

At the start of play tomorrow they’re likely to be even lower. Manchester United fans have seen more draws than a poker addict this season but surely they will beat a doomed Sunderland side on Sunday afternoon, leaving Arsenal 6^th with 8 games left to play of the season. If Palace beat them they’ll remain 7 points adrift of Manchester City with just a single game in hand. Arsenal have to win this game whereas Palace, perhaps, don’t – just like when Liverpool came to town a couple of seasons ago with dreams of the title in tow. We all remember how that one ended…

Palace must do better going forward

Southampton and Chelsea both dominated possession and had the lions share of the clear chances in the game but the outcome was very different, the key difference being the threat Palace posed on the counter. We were laboured and ineffective against Southampton whereas against Chelsea we could conceivable have scored twice more through Zaha alone.

Part of the performance against Southampton was fatigue. Chelsea was a huge effort physically, from the 15th minute onwards the game turned into an exercise in counter-attacking. It was an exercise we passed with flying colours but nevertheless there appeared to be a very clear hangover on Wednesday evening as the combination of enforced changes and jaded players played a part in the result. A slightly longer break should have improved the situation for Monday but thanks to injuries Sam’s options for shuffling the pack are limited so we should expect to see more or less the same line-up as we did on Wednesday.

Another aspect is our reliance on Wilfried Zaha to create things out of thin air. The well-worked goal we scored at Southampton was an exception to the norm, it was worked from side to side patiently before a great delivery from Townsend that was duly dispatched by Benteke. Usually our goals rely on a moment of brilliance from one of our ‘mavericks’ but Zaha was off-colour on Wednesday and failed to hit the heights he’s reached in the past few weeks. Everyone’s entitled to an off-day, if he could produce the performances he has been every week he wouldn’t be playing for Palace, but it was clear that we as he struggled going forward so did the whole team overall.