Crystal Palace continue to find success vs Spurs, Stoke! Newcastle United had gained promotion from coming in 1st place in the Championship a season ago, so you can only imagine that they'd be gunning hard to validate themselves at the next level. It didn't take them very long to strike against Crystal Palace, with a big header by Islam Slimani in the 18th minute they led 1-0! The next 40 or so minutes of the match were fairly dull, with the only notable happenings being a yellow card by Tomkins in the 30th, and then changes started happening in the 50th minute and beyond. All of that was fine and dandy until he 58th minute, when Jeffrey Schlupp made a reckless challenge on Christian Atsu and earned himself a red card. Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Now a loss looked just about certain. Ruben Loftus-Cheek was brought on for Milivojevic in the 61st, and that would prove to be a winning substation by LeClair as he STRUCK in the 87th minute in the dying moments for a goal! Beautiful build-up play led to the creation, even while under-manned, and the Eagles would hold on for a
1-1 draw on the road! Listen, I know that after wins against teams like Manchester City and Chelsea that a draw vs Newcastle doesn't seem that great, but considering we were playing away and had 10-men? Hell of a performance, and well done lads even more so on short rest!
(Match #11 of PL) @ Tottenham(PLAYED 1 of 2): Oooooooh baby do you want to talk about a thrilling match! Both sides were generating chances all throughout, but it would be Crystal Palace with an early goal in the 16th minute! Samuel Grandsir was in the box attempting to get past Serge Aurier, and when he turned around he was dragged down for a penalty! Knowing that Benteke had missed the last PK, Wilfried Zaha was given the chance and buried it in the bottom left hand corner for a 1-0 early lead! But as opposed to other sides, Spurs were creating opportunities. In the 28th minute, he stopped Dele Alli attempting to go near-post for a huge save. Crystal Palace responded with chances of their own, but they simply could not get past Paulo Gazzaniga today who was phenomenal in goal for Spurs. In the 40th minute, Alexander Sølorth banged a shot off the post. In the 45th, he made a huge save on a corner that was unbelievably dangerous. This was a back-and-forth match, and the Spurs had a chance in the 50th to take the lead with Harry Kane breaking free but he sent a finesse shot wide with Sakho pushing him off the ball. Kane then hit the post in the 54th minute, as the ball clanked off and sailed to van Aanholt who cleared it. Sølorth also had so many chances to bury 2-3 goals but Gazzaniga was fantastic, and Sølorth's finishing was poor. This tension would last until the 90th minute when Sada Thioub did what he does best. With Victor Wanyama on him gassed, Thioub manuevered around the dis-orientated and displaced Spurs defense, found a gap, and BURIED a shot PAST GAZZANIGA FOR THE GOAL!
2-0 CRYSTAL PALACE! I gotta tell you, while he isn't on the level of many players in the team, Thioub's pace and ability to come on and ice a match is just tremendous. Zaha won MOTM with a 9.0 rating but Thioub had a 8.5 in very limited time and hell, it's yet another clean sheet for Werner! Crystal Palace now find themselves in 3rd place with 18 points!
(Match #12 of PL) vs Everton: After a rough start to the season, Crystal Palace have turned themselves around and are now in Champions League qualifying position!.... okay so that may not last but hey, it's still cool to say regardless. With a home match against Everton, LeClair stuck with what was working but decided to make a few adjustments by putting Milivojevic in the starting lineup and playing Townsend once again. It took 24 minutes for the first goal to come and it was courtesy of Gylfi Sigurdsson, who on a free kick after a foul committed by Cabaye scored. Damn. Still, our star who's been the hero in terms of salvaging points Wilfried Zaha responded with a goal of his own, and the sides were knotted up at the break. in terms of subs, Crystal Palace made two by bringing on Jeffrey Schlupp for Townsend in the 49th minute and Loftus-Cheek for Milivojevic in the 75th, but there would be no late heroics from Cheek this time around. All he would get is a yellow card in the 83rd minute, and the sides would have to settle for a
1-1 draw. You would have liked a win considering you're playing at home, but sometimes you've gotta accept the point and just move on to the next match.
(Match #13 of PL) vs Stoke City (PLAYED 2 of 2: Two teams that have been the talk of the Premier League to start the season, heading into the match with all sides having played 12 matches, Crystal Place are in 4th place with 19 points while Stoke City are in 6th with 17 points! It did not take until the 6th minute for the matches first momentum shifting moment of the day. Badoy Ndiaye was on the edge of Crystal Palace's box when he saw Jeffrey Schlupp make an error to cover Mame Diouf, leaving Bilal Başaçıkoğlu unmarked with only Samuel Grandsir behind him. He laid a masterful pass, clearly onside, and OOOF BASACIKOGLU BLASTS IT WIDE OF THE NET! Just embarrassing. You will rarely get opportunities as open as he had there. That miss would prove costly because Stoke City's offense never had a better chance than that all day. Crystal Palace on the other hand was battering Jack Butland, forcing him to make back-to-back elite saves against Benteke volleys and headers. An off side goal by Sørloth did not end up counting in the 20th, and Stoke City had another golden opportunity to score just before halftime in the 43rd minute. Diouf played a 1-2 with Darren Fletcher and had an angle on goal, but thanks to Axel Werner barely getting a hand to it it banged off the post and stayed out! 0-0 at the break, Crystal Palace kept pressing onwards. Finally a chance came in the 63rd minute. Benteke found Bissouma coming towards the edge of the box and Bissouma saw Samuel Grandsir create some distance from Mortiz Bauer, catching him off guard, he slipped the pass BEHIND Bauer, Grandsir shoots it on one-touch, OFF RYAN SHAWCROSS, AND INTO THE NET! A DEFLECTION GOAL! HAH! It was scrappy, but it was all the Eagles would need. Stoke City's offense failed to break-through and
The Eagles had won 1-0! In terms of rating, no surprise who won MOTM... Yves Bissouma with a 9.1, and Ndiaye was comfortably the best player for Stoke with a 7.2, he may be somebody to scout for in the next few windows. Also a big congrats to Grandsir on his first goal at the club and hell also credit to Benteke/Sølorth for making an impact, let's keep the good times rolling!
(Match #14 of PL) @ Brighton: 3rd placed Crystal Palace against 14th placed Brighton is not a matchup many would have anticipated this deep into the season. Sadly, this game will not be remembered for the play at hand but rather the gruesome injury Jaïro Riedewald suffered in just the 10th minute of the match. Going up for a header he got a boot in his heel from a fellow teammate and had to be subbed off right away for Tomkins, hope it isn't anything too serious. To make things more interesting, Brighton got a red card in the 15th minute via Kieran Tierney! 10-man Brighton would fend for their lives against Palace who kept bringing on an on-slaught of attackers from Brereton to Grandsir, but nothing was good enough to penetrate the defense. At the end of the day, this finished a
0-0 draw. I'd say this is the first real disappointing outcome you can say for this month, and the only one at that. Of course Riedewald getting hurt may have shaken the team a bit, and the fact he's out with a femur contusion for 2 weeks sucks, but hey. You gotta get a goal in those 75 minutes against 10-man Brighton.
2017 November Summary: It was an extremely effective month for us in the Premier League. We continued to see big wins against big clubs and we've seen ourselves rise to the top 25% of the league table. Yves Bissouma continues to blossom into a star and the likes of Samuel Grandsir and Axel Werner have made their contributions known. I believe the true potential turning point for this season now comes in December, where we have an incredible 7 matches scheduled for the month. They include West Brom, AFC Bournemouth, Watford, Leicester City, Swansea City, Arsenal, and Manchester City. Depending on their performances, LeClair could very well make the decision to add re-enforcements and make a push for Europe via January transfers. Whether he wants to deviate or not from his initial plan will ultimately be on his shoulders. But hell, with injuries potentially coming it would be a very wise move to do ahead of time. One name I'll drop in here... Badou Ndiaye, just sayin'.