Sunday saw Palace take on Wolves in the 2pm kick off. The game not being the glamourous match on paper that everyone wanted to see broadcast on television for the armchair Premier League fans, but it turned out to be an entertaining fixture all being said.
As 1pm rolled around, the team news broke and none of us were surprised to see that there were no changes to the starting line-up and Roy’s reliance on Jeffrey Schlupp continued to baffle even the most ardent of Palace fans, and only reinforced by his performance during the game. I cannot see much change to the starting line-up for a while until Michael Olise returns fully fit and firing, as much as we feel we need changes, it’s just not going to happen.
Just a quick comment on the transfer window – my son being only 9 feels like it was an awful window! Me being significantly older didn’t think that the window was too bad. We lost a lot of experience but replaced that with two players with a fair few hundred Premier League games between them in Jefferson Lerma and Rob Holding.
Lerma has settled into the midfield so well and is an upgrade on what we had before. Holding will offer cover across the backline and whilst not that exciting at only a reported million British pounds, it does makes sense. The signing of Dean Henderson is a little more confusing but the whole Vicente Guaita saga made the signing necessary. Had Vinnie not downed tools then we wouldn’t have needed to shell out the funds we had. However, in Henderson you have a young but experienced keeper who has played at the top level.
To the game, and I felt it started a little flat with both teams looking slow in possession and this may have been partly due to the heat which was unbearable pitch side at times. However, the game started to settle into a rhythm and chances started to be created. The most notable being Jordan Ayew’s one-on-one that somehow he managed to hit the ball in the only place a player was! That was the only real chance of the first half other than a penalty shout that I never felt would be given.
Whatever Roy said at half time seemed to work as we started to create a little more and looked more on the front foot. I sat there and said to my son the problem we have with no Wilfried Zaha and Olise in the team is a lack of width. And with that, up ran Tyrick Mitchell into the space and finally deliver the type of cross we have needed for a while, which was met by a clever run by Odsonne Edouard who guided the ball into the net.
Wolves reacted immediately with changes, and it was one of the substitutes who scored in Hwang Hee Chan. He arrived above our defence to shoulder home the cross. This led to us making some changes of our own and who would’ve thought that Jean-Philippe ‘Boom Boom Boom’ Mateta would be the guy to change the game.
The Frenchman harried and hustled the defence and delivered two sublime assists. The first for Eberchi Eze (off his back, which he of course meant) to score his first of the season, and the second a little flick laying the ball onto Edouard for his second of the game and third in four games.
After that goal the result never really looked in any doubt even with the late consolation goal from Cunha, met with very little enthusiasm from the away supporters.
Being the first article from both me and my son, I wish we could have disagreed a lot more about the things that happened during the game but everything that went on we both felt the same way. Ayew played well, Ward looked better, Lerma is great, and Schlupp is pointless. We also both agreed that the Edouard chant is awful – come on guys we can do better than that!
We now go into an international break where we sit and wait news of players being injured and scuppering all the good work we have done thus far. Hopefully all the players come through unscathed. When the fixtures were announced I’m pretty sure the predictions of most people would’ve had us at 7 points after the 4 games, so we aren’t surprised with where we are right now.
Our articles that will be posted on TEB will be the view of both myself and my 9-year-old son. We have been attending games together since he was very little, and he is a very up and down supporter, whereas I am a little more level-headed. Our opinions clash and differ with our support for Palace – I am the optimist, and he is the pessimist, and you will see that over the course of a season! We have been sat in the Whitehorse for the last ten seasons and will continue to be the voice of the Whitehorse for a few more years to come.
