An away trip to Selhurst Park where we’ve always
had a fairly decent record having one win one draw and one defeat in our last
three visits. Of course, all anyone wants to talk about when we play Crystal
Palace is Wilfried Zaha and one way or another, he will be at the centre of
things today.
Zaha the footballer is ridiculously talented and he of course should by now
have moved on to bigger and better things than Crystal Palace but we all know
the reason that he hasn’t. On the face of it, he is a prodigiously talented, pacey
winger or inside forward and over the past couple of years has added more end product
to his game whilst playing for a team that has been mid-table or slightly
lower. It was no surprise that last season, his numbers improved with Patrick Vieira
as manager, as opposed to Roy Hodgson and I half expected him to move on this
summer but once again it didn’t happen.
In the past, Palace have been able to hold him to his long-term contract and
ask for a fee of £80m plus, which of course no one was prepared to spend and
another couple of years have gone by since then and it seems there’s been no
serious interest in a player who is now nearly 30. The major flaw in his game
of course is the temperament which can manifest itself in a couple of ways. The
first is that he just drifts out of games and you don’t notice him but this is
something that he has certainly changed in the last couple of years. The other
of course is his tendency to completely lose his shit when provoked. It will be
interesting to see if Saints employ some wind up tactics today especially with
the possibility of Lyanco being in that area of the pitch as well.
From an attacking point of view, it’s not just Zaha who we have to worry about
these days with Eberechi Eze and Michael Olise being decent sources of
creativity. Palace are not great in a centre forward position with Odsonne
Edouard looking a bit like Christian Benteke part two. Last year of course,
Palace had Conor Gallagher in the centre of midfield and they are missing him
this season having not brought in a decent replacement for the Chelsea loanee.
The central defence is strong with Guehi and Andersson being one of the better
combinations outside of the Super League 6 but I feel that the full backs can be
got at, Joel Ward because he basically isn’t very good and Tyrick Mitchell
because of his slight stature and inexperience.
Saints need to step up in this game as we cannot afford another game against a
team who are going to be around us this season to go by, after our dismal
showings against Villa, Wolves and Everton. Two of the managers of those two clubs have
since been sacked, which shows you how shit they were and both Bruno Lage and
Steven Gerrard masterminded (if that’s the right word) wins against us. It is about how we play today. In common with
us, Palace have also made Frank Lampard look like a managerial genius recently
and their defeat was arguably even worse, capitulating 3-0 at Goodison Park
last week. Once again, we are facing a team that will be relatively low on
confidence so we have to unsettled them early and not do what we did against
Wolves and Villa and allow them to grow into the game. Over to you Ralph, we
lose or we learn remember.
Well it looks like a Lyanco versus Zaha is happening because we have basically
gone with the shape that was successful in the second half against Arsenal so
Elyounoussi will be right wing back and Che Adams is fit to return in place of
Adam Armstrong. I can’t help but feel
that this is Ralph rewarding players who were decent last week, rather than
picking a team for this particular game.
Anyhow, Palace are pretty much as expected with Schlupp and Milivojević
being the midfield that we have to get at. If they are allowed to freely get
the ball to Zaha, Eze and Olise, then we could be in for a difficult afternoon.
Saints actually start quite well with a JWP corner causing a bit of chaos in
the 6 yard box but Palace get away with it. Palace’s first foray forward sees
them first to the ball about three times in the centre of midfield before Zaha
gets away on the left and his low cross was somehow not turned into the net by
the sliding Edouard.
We get another example of the shambles of modern officiating after that as Adams
spins away on the halfway line and is allowed to get to the edge of the box and
cut inside a very half-arsed challenge from Anderssen before curling a shot
onto the outside of the post. Everyone goes ‘oooooh’ but the reason that Anderssen
wasn’t arsed becomes abundantly clear when the linesman sticks his flag up
after the ball has gone out. Absolutely fucking ridiculous. The replay proves
that Adams was the only player in the Palace half when the ball was released so I'm sure the flag dickhead could've flagged that one early.
Zaha vs Lyanco: More Fun in Theory Than In Reality
And then the moment we had all been waiting for happened as Zaha knocked the ball off, time stood still, civilisations rose and fell and then Lyanco battered into the back of him. Yellow card for Lyanco and Zaha has a little kick out and gets a yellow as well, which sees Big Patrick on the sidelines kick off. Fuck knows why – you kick out at a player then you’re lucky it’s not a red.
We are lucky not to go one down soon after as a long ball forward picks out Edouard who flicks it to Olise, who has made a superb diagonal run off the wing. Back it goes to Edouard and he smashes it into the net. Offside, very narrowly but again a very good indication of what we do not do when we are attacking, in running across the pitch to lose defenders.
It’s a false dawn though as far as keeping a clean sheet is concerned and it doesn’t take long to happen. JWP and Lyanco play triangles and come away with the ball and then Lyanco dawdles and is knocked off the ball by Zaha. Zaha runs straight into the vacant centre back area and finds Mitchell overlapping on the left and his cross is easily turn into the nearby Edouard. It looks offside to me at first glance but it isn’t and Palace deservedly lead.
Half-time and Ralph has to correct one of the more obvious team selection fuck ups by taking off Diallo, who has been completely invisible and replacing him with Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Away we go and straight away, Saints are passing the ball better and with more confidence.
Che Adams is of course well known for doing all the hard work. He does this by controlling a long ball whilst holding off Andersson and then links with JWP and he’s clean through against the keeper with ball on his right foot. Surely this is there to bend around the keeper and inside the far post but no, straight at Guaita. Has to score.
We are in the ascendency now despite the miss. Caleta-Car strides our defence and links up with AMN. Forward we go with the ball eventually being given to Stuart Armstrong on the left and he cuts in and smashes it at the near post but unfortunately, he’s 100% accurate and it hits the near post and we get the consolation of a corner as the ball bounces back off of Ward.
Saints are now actually pressing and what do you know, Palace are making mistakes. Elyounoussi closes down Mitchell and the ball rebounds into midfield where Adams again does the hard work, flicking it around the corner to Aribo, taking on the return pass and as it opens up on his left foot, again he smashes it straight at the goalkeeper.
There’s another chance with Perraud and Adams teeing up JWP, who smashes it a couple of feet wide. Fuck. Here come the subs with Elyounoussi and Perraud making way for Djenepo and Edozie and we go full ‘wingers as wing backs’. Shit or bust but at least it’s positive.
Palace are butchering chances to put the game to bed with Ayew totally failing to pick out Zaha in the middle and instead finding our one and only defender, AMN. The new wing-backs get involved fairly quickly and there’s a decent move with a bit of purpose that ends with Edozie getting through on the right hand side and hammering a ball across which more by luck than judgement, Guaita manages to get away from the goal.
Mara is on for Stuart Armstrong and in the 90th minute we build, going back into our own half four times in the process before Djenepo breaks rank and puts over a cross which is speculative at best and Mara heads about 20 yards wide. That sums us up. Where’s the urgency? Where’s the attacking plan? Full time.
Well, we did exactly what we did in the Wolves and Villa games, thus proving that we didn’t learn when we lost, we just lost and then decided to make the same mistakes in more games. Today’s first half was as bad as we have been all season with absolutely no attacking idea, culminating in us going behind just before half-time. We had a couple of chances wasted at the start of the second half but then kind of period of nothing where we had no urgency and it all finished up in the 90th minute with us just passing the ball about and Palace quite happy with 11 behind the ball and us with no plan of how to get through. You sense that we would’ve passed it around until the referee blew his final whistle but eventually someone thought they’d better actually get the ball into the mixer. Garbage.
So, like the Wolves and Villa game we were passive as shit in the first half and allowed the lacking in confidence opposition to build into the game and go in with a 1-0 half-time lead and we did the same again today. In the second half of the other two games we were a little better without ever really looking like scoring and today was exactly the same. Yes we missed a couple of chances, one of which should definitely have gone in but “We win or we learn”, my big fat fucking hairy arse.
Ralph ultimately got the team wrong and it was not a surprise to me that he picked as close as he could to the Arsenal second half 11. He did this last year if you remember when we beat Arsenal and then we went to Burnley in the next match for a completely different assignment against a different style of team and he picked the same team again, played the same way and we stunk the place out. I think the idea as far as Ralph is concerned is to reward the players who played well last week and there is something in that but there is considerably more in picking a team to beat the specific opposition that you are playing against. Do we really pay Ralph the big bucks to stumble across things that work once and the keep trying them regardless of the opposition? It was obviously not working in that first half – why wait to half time to change it? I wonder if it is too much of an ego thing to change a team before half time?
Palace away is different to Arsenal at home. Palace were there to be got at but we didn’t do that and we didn’t expose their lack of confidence and we allowed them to get the ball to the good players and this is why we end up with yet another defeat against a very average team.
Many Saints fans, myself included were looking forward to the Lyanco against Zaha battle but it occurred to me pretty quickly that whilst they are equally had a chance of getting sent off, if it comes down to actual footballing ability then Zaha is streets ahead. Lyanco did well to not get sent off today but he got totally done for what proved to be the winning goal, losing the ball to Zaha his own half. His personality is such that you really want him to do well but today wasn't a great day for him and unless he managed to get Zaha sent off without getting sent off himself, it was never going to be. Not having a proper right back and Lyanco being dragged into wide areas didn't help either.
Armstrong and Aribo had nice moments but too few and far between and it was another day where the lack of attacking options after the transfer window came back to bite us again. I’m refusing to have a go at Che Adams because he is by far and away the best that we’ve got and he had a decent game today in terms of everything but that which he is judged on - goals. When you look at our attacking options to change the game, they are basically Adam Armstrong, Theo Walcott and Sekou Mara. There’s a very good chance that whatever player you take off to bring on one of those three is going to result in a downgrading of the teams attacking threat. And another thing, why did we persist with three at the back, even in the last 10 minutes.
So, last week might of been a step forward as far as Ralph was concerned, today was a great leap backwards in what was a pretty dismal defeat. Next up is Newcastle at home – moaning Eddie Howe and all – we need to turn up, for 90 minutes against a very well organized and energetic Newcastle side.
No comments:
Post a Comment