Crystal Palace Fan View: Wilfried Zaha inspires another stolen victory

Late flourish means Crystal Palace come out on top

Once again Wilfried Zaha deserves all the plaudits he gets, it was he who almost single-handedly wrestled Crystal Palace into the lead. In the first 80 minutes his performance was largely ineffective, he was frustrated by Watford, the referee and our own collective incompetence and his display was punctured with moments of petulance at the perceived injustice of the decisions not given.

All that was set to one side in the last ten minutes of the game, however when he was magnificent. He started operating a little wider and all of a sudden their full back wished he’d stayed at home. He’d struggled to make an impact on the game until then, but once he smelt his opportunity he delivered. Twice.

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Roy’s substitutes make a huge impact

I was poised to once again attack the questionable 4-4-2 formation that Roy Hodgson seems married to, the same one that saw us dominated in midfield for 80 of the 90 minutes in the game. The effectiveness of his two substitutes, both of whom popped up with a goal in the last five minutes doesn’t blunt this point completely but means he should perhaps be afforded a break.

I think we were all scratching our heads when Townsend was withdrawn for Patrick van Aanholt and Fosu-Mensah switched for Bakary Sako, but combined with the introduction of McArthur they proved to be inspired choices. Bakary Sako’s goal was a touch fortunate, scoring not at the first attempt, more by accident on the second, but the timing was crucial. From nowhere almost, we were level with 5 minutes left to play and just moments after Cleverly’s dismissal. Had it come minutes later, we almost certainly wouldn’t have gone on to win the game.

Bakary Sako has endured his fair share of ridicule and derision in the last season, but every time I’ve seen him this season he’s worked hard and looked like he’s cared. Yesterday he was direct and energetic and without his introduction we wouldn’t have won the game, he changed the impetus. We are not blessed with a huge squad and he clearly has a role to play this season and should be fully supported in that role.

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Result mustn’t detract from Crystal Palace’s struggles

I am immensely pleased to have clambered out of the relegation zone, but at this stage that achievement is nothing more than psychological and could very well be remedied on Wednesday evening. Winning the game in the fashion we did was fantastic, but our success was built on a number of mistakes from Watford and on the balance of play, wasn’t deserved.

Had Tom Cleverley stayed on the pitch, we wouldn’t have won. Had Troy Deeney tucked away a sitter from three yards, we wouldn’t have won. If Richarlison had fired anyway apart from straight at Speroni, we wouldn’t have won.

I am not trying to put a downer on the result, but anybody using this win as evidence that we’ll clamber free either didn’t see the game, or is the ultimate optimist. With Mamadou Sakho absent we looked fragile defensively. The first goal was inexplicably soft and had Watford scored a second in the first half you couldn’t have said it wouldn’t have been deserved.

This is beginning to become a habit, winning games we ought not to and drawing games we ought to win. They key from our point of view was that we kept fighting, and the team deserves credit for that, but Watford also stopped playing in the last 10 minutes. Had they not made such an error I would have been sat here enviously lauding Watford’s progress under Marco Silva and wondering ‘what if’ it was him appointed in the summer, not Frank de Boer…