Defeat at Selhurst Park

A disappointing performance saw us slip to defeat to Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon.

The home side scored the only goal of the game through Jean-Philippe Mateta in the first half to collect their first Premier League win of the season and, while we dominated the possession statistics, Palace were better in every other metric with more shots on and off target.

Brennan Johnson struck the woodwork with a fortuitous deflection and Eagles goalkeeper Dean Henderson made good saves from James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski, but in truth we were second best on the afternoon and fell to our fourth league defeat of the season.

The game did see Academy graduate Mikey Moore become our youngest player to start a Premier League match since Stephen Carr in September, 1993, while it also marked the 200th Premier League appearance of James Maddison’s career.

There was very little rhythm to the game for much of the first half, a number of injuries and fouls disrupting the flow of the match and preventing either side from getting into their stride. It wasn’t until the 26th minute that we had any chance of note to record but after that, there was plenty of action.

That first opportunity fell to the Eagles from a short corner routine, Will Hughes receiving the ball back and clipping over a cross which Maxence Lacroix met well with a header but it was over the crossbar. Shortly after Ismaila Sarr forced the first save of the match, firing straight at Guglielmo Vicario and it was just seconds later when we conceded the opener. Daniel Munoz robbed Micky van de Ven out on the Palace right and sent over a cross which Eberechi Eze flicked on to Mateta and he drilled home from the corner of the six yard box. We almost levelled a minute later though, a scramble from a corner seeing van de Ven’s effort divert off Johnson and against the woodwork.

As the first period moved into stoppage time, Pedro Porro hit a half-volley well over the bar before Eze did the same on the full at the other end. And there was still time in the half for Moore and Destiny Udogie to combine to set up Maddison, whose close-range shot was superbly tipped away by Henderson.

The Palace keeper was called into action in the early moments of the second half too, after Dominic Solanke had released Johnson down the right, his low cross finding Kulusevski but Henderson kept out his effort from six yards out. Palace then had the ball in the net through Eze, but it was ruled out for offside by VAR and they subsequently thought they should have had a penalty when Eze went down under the challenge of van de Ven but nothing was given. The Eagles were rampant at that stage and we needed Vicario to save with his legs to deny Sarr before Eze skewed wide from a good position and then had a 25-yard free-kick well saved by Vicario.

As the game moved into the final quarter we started to have the ball in more attacking positions without really threatening the Palace goal while the hosts almost added a second with eight minutes left, Vicario with an excellent diving save to push away Adam Wharton’s 22-yard drive. We threw some balls into the box in the final minutes as we tried to make something happen in front of goal but nothing would fall our way and we couldn’t prevent another reverse.

Match data

Goal: Palace – Mateta 31.

Yellow cards: Palace – Mateta, Munoz, Lacroix, Hughes; Spurs – Kulusevski, Johnson, van de Ven, Richarlison.

Referee: Darren Bond.

Venue: Selhurst Park.

Weather: Sunny, light winds, 14 degrees.

Attendance: 25,180.