This season, I am taking a walk down memory lane back through my 24 years and over 600 games of watching Palace.
For each home game, I’ll reflect on the highs and lows that I’ve seen against our opposition. Some clubs, I’ve got a rich history of great Palace moments, and for others, there’s been limited encounters but I’ll try to capture the emotion, context and excitement of the Palace life.
Arsenal
Well this one is easy! In nine games, I’ve seen just one win and two draws against the North London side. However, my personal record has a better ratio than our record of four wins in 43 games against them.
Briefly, I did consider selecting our 1-1 draw in 2004 when the invincibles were nearly broken as Selhurst rocked loud and proud as my top match against the Gunners. Through many highs of a brilliant 5pm kick off, I think my favourite moment was after Thierry Henry’s opener, when we fell silent for a few seconds before rising again to drown out the Arsenal fan’s chant of “We shall not, we shall not be moved!” Just a minute later, Aki Riihilahti equalised, the invincibles were moved from the top spot and have never really returned there. It was just a shame that Vassilis Lakis missed a late sitter.
However, there really was only one game to pick against Arsenal!
Highlight
Palace…3 (Townsend, Cabaye, Milivojevic)
Arsenal…0
10th April 2017, Premier League
Crystal Palace: Hennessey, WardKelly, Sakho, Schlupp, Milivojevic (Flamini 82′), Cabaye (McArthur 74′), Zaha (Delaney 88′), Puncheon, Townsend, Benteke
Arsenal: Martinez, Bellerín, Mustafi, Gabriel, Monreal, Xhaka, Elneny (Ramsey 59), Walcott (Oxlade-Chamberlain 69′) Özil, Sánchez, Welbeck (Giroud 60′)
We’ve had bigger wins than this, and even more impressive ones, and certainly some more important ones – but this has to be the most satisfying Palace result in my history. We absolutely destroyed Arsenal on the night. For me as a teacher, it was the Easter Holidays so I spent the afternoon in the Bottled Beer Shop in West Norwood, Arts and Craft.
Buzzing with an alcohol-fuelled sense of optimism, I arrived at Selhurst Park and met my friend Dan in our Block C season tickets. Unfortunately for him, he hadn’t been drinking all afternoon and declined my offer to go for a pint after the game as he had work in the morning.
“But what if we win 3-0?” I asked, meekly.
“Well, then I will…”
He could tell I’d been drinking and rolled his eyes…
Three beautiful goals later from Andros Townsend, Yohan Cabaye and Luka Milivojevic, Dan and I were in the Polish café by Norwood Junction toasting just our fourth win against Arsenal in our 112 year history.
Lowest Moment
Arsenal…4
Palace…1 (Milivojevic)
20th January 2018, Premier League
Arsenal: Cech, Bellerín, Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal (Maitland-Niles 34′), Elneny, Özil (Nelson 72′), Wilshere, Xhaka, Iwobi (Kolasinac 82), Lacazette
Crystal Palace: Hennessey, Fosu-Mensah, Kelly, Tomkins, van Aanholt, Zaha, Cabaye (Riedewald 90′), Milivojevic, McArthur, Benteke, Sako
Full of confidence, we arrived in North London last season with just one loss in twelve games. Thirteen minutes later, we were 3-0 down, with a fourth coming nine minutes later. The performance was pitiful, Hodgson got his tactics all wrong and we failed to win in our next seven games as our season threatened to fall apart again. I’ll be honest, I spent most of the second half in the concourse drinking beer, but I did come back out to the stand to see Luka Milivojevic pull one back for us. I must admit, I’ve almost given up on ever seeing us win at the Emirates.
My Personal Record of Live Matches Against Arsenal
- Played 9
- Won 1
- Drawn 2
- Lost 6
- Scored 9
- Conceded 17
- Home 5
- Away 4
- Palace…1 Arsenal…1 (Premier League, 2004) – Riihilahti
- Palace…0 Arsenal…2 (Premier League, 2013)
- Arsenal…2 Palace…0 (Premier League, 2014)
- Palace…1 Arsenal…2 (Premier League, 2015) – Ward
- Arsenal…1 Palace..1 (Premier League, 2016) – Bolasie
- Arsenal…2 Palace…0 (Premier League, 2016)
- Palace…3 Arsenal…0 (Premier League, 2017)
- Palace…2 Arsenal…3 (Premier League, 2017) – Townsend, Tomkins
- Arsenal…4 Palace…1 (Premier League, 2018) – Milivojevic
