Three things we learned from Sunderland win

Zeki Fryers could still have a future at the club…

Before the summer window opened I pinpointed Zeki Fryers as a player who I expected to see leave the club but a combination of Pape Souare’s injury and Martin Kelly’s shakiness in the last couple of games means that it is forgotten man Zeki Fryers that, out of nowhere almost, is pushing for a start next weekend.

Looking at the situation logically, Zeki Fryers is the natural replacement for Pape Souare during his spell out – he’s a natural, left footed full back as opposed to a right back forced to play on his weaker side. That being said, since his arrival two years ago he’s made all of four appearances for Crystal Palace. Pape Souare has had absences before, small knocks or suspensions and before now Zeki has been nowhere near the reckoning.

That seems to have changed now though and if he can get a run of games together it really could be a welcome bonus for Palace. Martin Kelly looked shaky when he came on in midweek and subsequently conceded the penalty that put Southampton ahead and he struggled yesterday as well. It really is tough playing on the opposite side of the defence – your body position has to change; you have to play almost entirely on your weaker foot and your points of reference are different. Against a Premier League winger that’s tough.

Zeki looked more complete defensively when he came on and, perhaps even better, provided a wonderful moment going forward. It was his whipped cross that James McArthur nodded in to bring us level and the importance of that goal in going on to win the game can’t be understated and his confidence in beating his man and delivering the ball into the box with one of his first touches on the pitch was great. He’s been out of the team for a long time and this could be a turning point for his Palace career. There’s a long way to go yet, but on yesterday’s evidence he could be a surprise replacement while Pape recovers.

Midfield & defence continue to chip in with important goals

It was Christian Benteke that stole the headlines after rising above Stoke’s defence to nod in the winner, but once again the game was swung by contributions from other areas of the pitch, a phenomenon which is quickly becoming a habit.

Alan Pardew pointed out this week that our problem last season was that, compared to the previous season, we were simply not scoring enough goals. While our ‘goals conceded’ column held steady the ‘goals for’ column took a real hit last season and that, in terms of winning games, was the root of our problems.

In the last few games in particular, the balance seems to have been addressed and arguably the difference has been made not by the forwards, but by the midfield and defence chipping in. This week it was James McArthur & Joe Ledley (albeit with the help of a dangling leg) who drew us level and put us in with a shout of winning and last weekend it was the two centre-halves, Dann and Tomkins, who put us two goals to the good before McArthur effectively put the game to bed.

Once again Scott Dann leads the way as our top goal scorer but Christian Benteke is a solitary goal behind and more encouragingly James McArthur, Joe Ledley, James Tomkins and both wingers feature on that list. A breadth of goal scorers is important, we don’t want to be relying on one player to pull us out of the mire all the time. So far, we aren’t.

Consistency improving as games go by

In my preview to this game I highlighted the importance of consistency to the ultimate success or failure of our season and yesterday’s performance continued the good work we’d started last weekend against Stoke.

The fact that at one point we were two goals down suggests this wasn’t the case, but actually in terms of performance I don’t think we were far off. We went in 1-0 down at half time but the score wasn’t a reflection on either our performance or our control on the game and was more a representation of one moment of sloppiness from Joe Ledley. Overall, we created chances and kept the ball fairly well and were probably edging the game until the freak goal.

We did lose our way for the first 15 minutes of the second half but, all credit to Alan Pardew, his changes made an obvious difference. Substitutes Fryers and Lee will get the plaudits for providing assists for the second and third goal respectively but it was Connor Wickham who changed the dynamic of the game for me – the feel of the match changed back to one of a degree of control on his introduction and ultimately from there we got ourselves back into the game before completing the turnaround and winning the game.