CRYSTAL PALACE
So before the Euros, I was summarizing clubs 2015/16 seasons in reverse order. I'm going to continue that now, with the aim of finishing before the start of the 2016/17 season. So let's continue with Crystal Palace.
On New Year's Day, Crystal Palace sat 5th in the Premier League, with 31 points to their name, more than Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, West Ham and Southampton. In fact it was more than ten clubs that ended up finishing ahead of them - they were twelve points ahead of a Swansea side that ended up finishing five points ahead of them.
Because the first half of Palace's season was excellent, a really good few months. They won some high profile games, against Liverpool and Chelsea, and butchering Newcastle to seemingly cement the gap between the sides after Pardew left Newcastle for Palace. What I think was most telling about Palace's start to the season was the teams that they lost to. Other than a slip up against Sunderland in late November, only Arsenal, West Ham, Leicester, Spurs and City beat them, and none of those were hammerings either. Palace were doing what they had to do, which was beat and pick up points against the clubs in and around the mid-table, losing to only two sides outside the top four (both at the time and at the end of the season). Pardew had them playing well, causing problems and really pushing for a European finish.
And then it all came off the rails. Eleven points scored in 2016, just two wins (against a dreadful Norwich side and against a Stoke side who were already on holiday by early May), saw them plummet ten places in the table, and for a long time, with Palace not winning a game until the 9th of April since the turn of the year, a staggering four months and fifteen league games, it looked as if they were going to be sucked into the relegation dogfight, although they were always just about far enough clear that it ended up not being an issue.
The clear turning point was on the 12th of January, where a huge mistake from Wayne Hennessey handed Aston Villa their first win since the opening day of the season, condemning Palace to back to back defeats for the first time since October, following a 3-0 humbling at the hands of Chelsea. By this point, Palace hadn't scored in four games, and it seemed as though goals, and points, had dried up.
Things continued to get worse for Palace, as a rejuvenated Man City thrashed them, Spurs turned them over and then they managed to lose at home to Bournemouth in early February, as their humiliating run turned to five straight defeats, and seven games without a win, scoring just twice in that period. Palace had a very easy run of games in February/early March, but games against Bournemouth, Swansea, Watford, Sunderland and West Brom yielded just two points, before back to back defeats against Liverpool and Leicester meant that Palace had sunk to a new low, just two points in eleven games had seen them slide alarmingly to 16th, and only the total inepitude of the teams below them was keeping them reasonably safe, as they were still eight points clear of Sunderland, who admittedly had a game in hand on them.
By this point, the Palace fans had suddenly realised exactly why Alan Pardew was loathed in Newcastle, and it wasn't just Palace fans either, as journalists and pundits who had been praising him up until January quickly backtracked, and I imagine Newcastle fans would have been reasonably smug, were they not on the brink of getting relegated themselves.
However, the 1-0 win over Norwich was a huge release of pressure, a massive stop gap that managed to wrestle Palace some momentum, and enabled them to scramble to Premier League safety. Two wins and three draws in their final eight fixtures saw them pick up enough points to leapfrog Bournemouth on goal difference and limp to 15th place in the table.
A combination of factors would have contributed to Palace's slide. Pardew is very much a momentum manager who struggles to halt a slide once it starts. They must have felt reasonably secure in their position in January too, so there's no doubt that they took their foot off the gas once they started sliding, aware that they weren't going to get Europe, but certainly weren't going to get relegated (as we'll see was the case with Watford in a couple of days time). And like Watford, they were also engaging in a cup run which kept them going all the way to the FA Cup final.
Ultimately, it was just the lack of goalscoring forwards in this Palace side that caused them problems. Conor Wickham isn't a goalscorer, although he nabbed five league goals, Emmanuel Adebayor was a colossal failure, Bakary Sako was never a striker and Dwight Gayle is massively inconsistent, netting only three times in the league. Even their star player Yannick Bolasie failed to score more than five, levelling the total scored by central defender Scott Dann, and Frazier Campbell failed to score at all. Thirty-nine goals is the joint-third lowest tally in the league behind West Brom and...well you can guess. However, Palace's biggest strength was their defence, and they only conceded 51 goals all campaign, significantly less than everyone below them and slightly less than quite a few teams that finished ahead of them.
Overall, Palace will be very disappointed with their season, especially when it had such potential. But it's better to have one glaringly obvious fault than it is to have three or four chronic problems, and if Palace can sign a Premier League proven striker (and they probably will in Christian Benteke, who will suit them perfectly), then they could definitely make inroads on the top ten next season.
The Hard and Fast Section
- New rules about player behaviour. About time.
- Stoke in for Berahino. Good signing.
- All good for Froome. Nearly there.
- Stokes in very good form. Good news for England.
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