Palace Earn Point From Chelsea With Late Equaliser

There will have been plenty of concerned home fans when Cole Palmer netted early on for the visitors, but the Eagles regrouped and battled back to earn a deserved point.

MATCH INFORMATION

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 15 Jeffrey SCHLUPP, 17 Nathaniel CLYNE, 30 Matt TURNER, 34 Chadi RIAD, 55 Justin DEVENNY, 58 Caleb KPORHA, 64 Asher AGBINONE

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 2 Axel DISASI, 4 Tosin ADARABIOYO, 12 Filip JORGENSEN, 14 Joao FELIX, 18 Christopher NKUNKU, 24 Reece JAMES, 40 Renato VEGA,

TEB VERDICT

It looked ominous when the visitors took the lead but it was pleasing to see how Palace dealt with going a goal behind and fighting hard to earn a share of the points.

With both Trevoh Chalobah and Will Hughes missing from the starting lineup, who has both been influential players in recent weeks, it perhaps took some time for their replacements to acclimatise to starting. A good sixty minutes will do Cheick Doucoure a lot of good as his slow but steady return from a horrid injury continues.

This result is all about respecting the point and while the visitors entered the game on a two-game losing streak, that is often a dangerous time to play a side with hopes of being involved in the title race towards the end of the season.

Notable performances from Daniel Munoz and Jean-Philippe Mateta, once again.

POST GAME QUOTES

OLIVER GLASNER

“At the end, it is a deserved point. In the first 20 or 30 minutes, Chelsea were clearly the better team and deserved to take the lead but, in the last 10 to 15 minutes of the first half, we started to play forwards and then we were in the game.

We were creating chances and everyone at Selhurst Park then gets the feeling ‘we are back’. The fans had the feeling, the players had the feeling, and it was an excellent goal.

We were giving them too much of the ball, losing it too quickly, but staying in the game was important. We always know we can score a goal and that’s what we did at the end. You can feel and see that we are progressing. Having five points from three games is really positive. It is about how quickly we can pass the ball and find solutions.”

ENZO MARESCA

“It is a shame because I think we deserved to win the game. We had so many chances. We know we have to be clinical, otherwise the game is always open, and we conceded a goal. Sometimes you are going to win at the end, sometimes lose and sometimes draw.

We were in control of the ball, lost it and then conceded. If we had been more clinical before the goal was scored then the game could have been finished. We had three or four clear chances for 2-0 and to kill the game but, at 1-0, they got belief and unfortunately we conceded.

When you don’t win three or four games, it is normal that the rest will come closer to you. In the last four games, we have drawn two and lost two – so the gap [between the top four] is closer, but there are still 18 games to go.”

MATCH STATISTICS

UPCOMING FIXTURES