The good, the bad and the ugly

In the end, a draw; one that felt like both a victory, but also a defeat

In the end, a draw; one that felt like both a victory, but also a defeat. A victory in the sense that at half time, and following a (sadly predictable) insipid first half that found the team 2-0 down to another struggling team, getting anything out of the game would’ve felt like a win. A defeat in the sense that after a hugely impressive second 45 mins of one way traffic, that only emerging with one point felt like a missed opportunity. Last minute goals tend to do delirious things to football supporters – goals scored as the clock ticks down, and certainly ones in injury time carrying far more weight than normal. Goals scored in the 97^th minute are a collector’s item; hence the emotional outpouring as Wilfried Zaha’s shot hit the back of the net Saturday; elation, ecstasy, delirium, relief and a sense of justice being done all exploding together.

It reminded me in a way of a game against Preston in 2005 in which Palace were trailing 1-0 deep into stoppage time. The context was that Preston had played the last 21 minutes with nine men. When Clinton Morrison equalised at the death there was a similar release of satisfaction, quietly giving way to sheepishness that it might not reflect too well that it had taken that long, or that the team had found themselves in that situation. The last second goal in the game 12 years later did feel like it was different though.

The Palace team of 2005/06 were freshly relegated from the Premier League and only a couple of months into a season where they were expected to bounce straight back. To this day I would maintain that on paper, that squad should have been automatic promotion certainties rather than mundane playoff hopefuls, bundled out in the semi-finals by Watford. That Preston game actually revealed a lot of the failings that prevented promotion that year and that having to rely on such a late goal to draw at home with a workmanlike team of nine men shouldn’t have been quite the moment for celebration that it seemed like in the moment.

But that’s of course being wise after the event and removes the emotion that comes from being a football fan. According to some West Ham fans, Palace celebrated Zaha’s goal as if it was the winner in the Champions League final; it wasn’t even a winner in that game. And yet, even taking away the sheer illogical thrill that every fan gets from experiencing their team rescue something from the jaws of certain defeat, in many ways it felt like one. Just like the Preston game of over a decade ago, only time will tell in the long term if Saturday’s game was a sign of the failings or the qualities of this side. As I’m sitting here right now, I’m choosing to hope it’s the latter.

The encounter with West Ham showed off the good, the bad and the ugly of Palace in a neat 90 minute package, wrapped up in a Zaha shaped bow. The ugly being very much the first half display. Unfortunately it was a half that Palace fans have been increasingly used to this season, in which the home side starts games so passively and in such an underwhelming manner you think that the referee should check the players pulse before the kick off. It’s why the team have lost so often this season, trying to play their way into a game slowly before it’s usually too late, the same thing that was within seconds of happening against the Hammers.

The games away at Man City, Man United and Liverpool were always going to be tough, and far better teams than us have already had their backsides spanked by City in particular, but the reason the team is where it is - propping up the rest - and what has been so disheartening have been the defeats to Huddersfield, Swansea, Southampton, Burnley and Newcastle. While all the defeats have their own individual caveats for what went wrong or hard luck stories that can be wheeled out, most, or all could be characterised by slow, uninspired and pedestrian starts, compounded in the games against Southampton and Burnley by early errors that set the tone for a team already low on confidence. Saturday’s game against West Ham followed that trend.

The only occasion in which the trend was bucked was the outstanding victory over Chelsea in which Palace flew out of the traps, starting aggressively on the front foot and it made a huge difference. You have to acknowledge that isn’t suitable in every game. Against a team like Liverpool it makes sense to play deep and not allow them the counter attack, a tactic that narrowly missed out on achieving a point at Anfield. Likewise, against Newcastle the team employed a sensible approach to getting a valuable away point through keeping possession and not giving up chances. Again, it so narrowly, and in this case, undeservedly failed to result in a point. But in games, most notably at home, and most notably to similarly goal shy strugglers like Swansea, Southampton and indeed West Ham, there is absolutely no reason for Palace to have started so far on the back foot they were virtually in the White Horse Lane car park.

Those were all teams there for the taking – just as Palace were of course to them – and the failure to apply pressure from an early stage allowed the away team to settle and eventually create a chance they ended up taking. Against Huddersfield, Swansea, Southampton and West Ham, all those teams scored with their first meaningful chance. Are Palace just unlucky? Or is it due to those teams being allowed to settle under no pressure, when as shown in a lot of their other games that their confidence is just as brittle as Palace’s. It was how the team found itself two goals down at half time to West Ham’s only two chances of note in the whole game.

But if that half showed the ugly, the second showed the good. The good being the trickery and persistence of Zaha, the speed and non stop running of Townsend, fine overlapping from Schlupp and Fosu-Mensah at fullback, interceptions and strong tackling from Milivojevic and crisp passing and expert set piece delivery from Cabaye. The good also being the players showing the quality we believe they have but that is too often being undermined by they themselves failing to believe that they do. Unfortunately it also showed the bad - the unbelievable amount of chances the side continues to pass up as they battered a West Ham team that ended up being saved in the second half by the holy trinity of the woodwork, good fortune and Joe Hart. Much as starting games in neutral and catastrophic individual defensive errors have characterised Crystal Palace version 2017_18, so has the missing of so many chances. Just go back and look at the Burnley game for the season summed up; an awful back pass from Lee Chung-yong in the third minute being ruthlessly exploited, before miss after miss after miss of highly presentable chances leading to defeat.

The win against Chelsea was meant to be the turning point, but that was followed up by the defeat on Tyneside and the embarrassing capitulation to Bristol City in which a number of the players given a chance to prove themselves only succeeded in proving that while the first team may be underachieving the wider squad is not fit for purpose. But the players on Saturday showed that hope is not dead, and that the team retains, however hidden it may appear at times, both spirit and ability. But it needs to show that from the beginning of games, and particularly against teams outside of the top six, start on the front foot. Stop being so placid and fearful of what other teams might do to them.

Outside of the Chelsea game, the second half of Saturday and most of the game against Burnley, Palace have been pretty dreadful, and yet, there’s a lot of other dreadful teams in this league that deserve less respect than Palace have been giving them. Saturday showed that when Palace go at teams, they can have them on the ropes. If they are to go down this season, it’s surely better to go down swinging.