Palace Complete United Double With Selhurst Thrashing

Entering Selhurst Park for this fixture, a steward asked a Palace fan for a prediction. The reply? A confident ‘5-0 to Palace’. The confidence was perhaps tongue in cheek more than a serious prediction but few would have expected such a one-sided result.

MATCH INFORMATION

• 8pm – 6^th May 2024
• Crystal Palace 4-0 Manchester United
• Selhurst Park, Holmesdale Road, London SE25 6PU

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 2 Joel WARD, 29 Naouirou AHAMADA, 31 Remi MATTHEWS, 49 Jesurun RAK-SAKYI

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 1 Altay BAYINDIR, 22 Tom HEATON, 65 Toby COLLYER, 70 Harry AMASS, 75 Habeeb OGUNNEYE, 78 Louis JACKSON

TEB VERDICT

We had to wait until Bank Holiday Monday evening to get to Selhurst for the next instalment of ‘Glasner-ball’ and boy, we were not disappointed.

The winning run continued in fine styles as the Eagles put United to the sword to complete the double over them for the season, and well deserved too. Palace should perhaps have won by more goals but the deserved scoreline was more than enough to send home fans away very happy indeed.

Every single player in a Palace shirt played their part in a demolition of a poor United side, but that should take nothing away from the way that the hosts beat them comfortably. Four fine goals sealed an incredible victory to make it five unbeaten with two games remaining this season.

The excitement ahead of the next campaign is palpable, especially if the Austrian manages to keep much of the squad together.

This result though will be one of those that will be remember by Palace fans for a long, long time, and rightly so.

BOB’S POINT OF VIEW

Bob White was a coach at Palace under the tenure of Steve Coppell and Alan Smith and will be sharing his point of view each week in our review article.

“The media will focus on how poor United were and they were certainly abject in every department but it should not detract from an outstanding and entertaining performance by Palace.

Tactically set up slightly differently to the Newcastle game by not consistently pressing so high but not only in specific areas and periods. Traps were set in midfield areas where Hughes and Warton completely stopped at source any threat. So much so that United were often left with hopeful diagonal balls which the back three dealt with comfortably.

Our midfield dominance allowed the attacking trio to run riot every time they received the ball in the United half. Their defence has no answer to the threat which was complemented by the foraging runs by Munoz and Mitchell.

Constant interchanging of positions and fluid movement off the ball never gave the visitors any chance to set a solid defensive platform. In reality, four goals could easily have been six or seven which would not have flattered Palace.

A performance where every outfield player deserved an 8/10 rating, but my man of the match goes to Ebere Eze who shaded I over some outstanding individual contributions.

Finally, congratulations to the whole squad and staff this season who contributed to achieving our first ever league double over United. Up the Palace!” 

POST GAME QUOTES

OLIVER GLASNER

“Congratulations to the team for this win and for the 4-0 at home to Manchester United. I think the first half, we didn’t really play well as we could, so it was not that consistent. The defence opened the middle too often and they could find the pockets and we had a little bit of problems, but we were very efficient, so we scored very nice goals. Then, at half-time, we made adaptions and the players listened again and in the second half, we were much better and were in much more control of the game. We created a lot of chances, we scored nice goals, but we were a little bit more consistent in our basics and so, it’s a great win and congratulations to the team.”

ERIC TEN HAG

“As Manchester United we should perform better. The players who were available should do better. It’s a deserved defeat. The performance wasn’t what we expected. We can’t focus on just one player. We have to focus on the team performance. This was not right. We have to put it right on Sunday. We have to learn from this game and improve. I was really grateful to the fans. They back us. They see also we have our problems. You have to stick together. You have to take responsibility. The fans gave us such huge and tremendous support.”

MATCH STATISTICS

POSITION IN THE TABLE (at the final whistle)

UPCOMING FIXTURES

11/05/24 Wolves (a) – Premier League 3pm

19/05/24 Aston Villa (h) – Premier League 4pm