Since the 2011/12 season, Palace have just won four of their fifteen opening-day league fixtures with a 2-1 League Cup victory over Exeter in 2012 bizarrely taking place before a 4-3 league home defeat to Watford.
As we approach this campaign’s kick-off, it seems like the perfect time to reflect on some of those opening Premier League clashes, with the hope that this year’s edition is more reminiscent of the 2-1 win at Everton in 1997 than the 3-0 drubbing suffered at the hands of newly promoted Huddersfield Town 20 years later.
Many Eagles supporters will fondly remember the 3-3 draw against Alan Shearer’s Blackburn Rovers, where the future Premier League record goalscorer struck twice for the Lancashire outfit. For Palace fans, however, the match is best remembered for Mark Bright scoring his final goal for the club, a powerful header that served as a fitting farewell from a Palace legend who amassed 113 goals in red and blue.
Another classic from the 1990s was the aforementioned Everton fixture, where Palace’s heroic bald eagle, Attilio Lombardo, scored on his debut. Bruce Dyer secured all three points with an emphatic penalty, inevitably won by the Italian after one of his trademark bursts forward.
Hence when Yohan Cabaye joined Alan Pardew’s Palace from PSG in the summer of 2015, plenty of fans drew comparisons and parallels with the purchase of the Italian eighteen years previous.
The Frenchman himself capped his debut with a goal, the third in a 3-1 beating of Norwich at Carrow Road to kick start the season. Goals from Wilfried Zaha and Damien Delaney ensured we held the advantage heading into the final stages of the fixture despite Nathan Redmond’s long-range effort for the Canaries, meaning that Cabaye’s calmly slotted finish past John Ruddy in stoppage time handed all three points to the visitors.
However, since our return to the top flight in 2013 that success in East Anglia has only been complemented by three other opening day victories, one of which wasn’t even seen by fans live in the stadium as a single strike from Zaha saw off Southampton in front of an empty Selhurst Park due to COVID-19 restrictions in September of 2020.
In fact, we have only recorded two other first match wins in our Premier League history alongside the Everton, Norwich and Southampton matches, both being under the guidance of experienced manager Roy Hodgson.
One of which came at Craven Cottage against recent Championship Play Off winners Fulham in 2018 as Zaha once again found the back of the net after Jeffrey Schlupp had opened our seasons account against the West Londoners.
The other was our most recent first match triumph away to Paul Heckingbottom’s Sheffield United where Odsonne Edouard scored the only goal in a relatively routine 1-0 win. However, the occasion was made memorable mainly due to Hodgson’s angry touchline antics as he clashed with Blades full back Max Lowe as the player went to collect the ball whilst appearing to shove Roy out of the way, sparking an uncharacteristic burst of rage!
Yet we are talking about Palace and, unfortunately, that means there are plenty of miserable moments to revisit as well.
One of the most painful was arguably the 3-0 defeat to Huddersfield Town mentioned in the introduction. New Dutch manager Frank de Boer strode onto the pitch in his trademark white chinos, projecting the image of a cool, calculated tactician confident in his methods. Unfortunately, his side looked anything but composed.
To this day, I struggle to understand exactly what Palace were attempting tactically that afternoon. Rarely have I seen a Palace team look so disorganised, and the defeat was the first of four successive losses that brought the former Netherlands international’s brief reign to an abrupt end.
Only the infamous 6-1 home defeat to Liverpool at the start of the 1994/95 campaign comes close in terms of opening-day embarrassment.
The omens unfortunately aren’t great for new man Pierre Sage either in regards to his personal desire to succeed on the opening match day. The only three men that have managed Palace on the opening day of the Premier League season having not being in charge of the final match of the previous campaign were Frank de Boer himself, Patrick Vieira and Keith Millen. Of course, the Dutchman crashed and burned on opening day while Vieira was also someone who lost 3-0 to start his tenure at the club, albeit away to European champions at the time Chelsea, with a certain Trevoh Chalobah scoring the game’s final goal.
Keith Millen had a much less egregious start as his Eagles narrowly lost late on against Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal at the Emirates in 2014. The circumstances behind this opener were extremely difficult for the interim coach to contend with as it was announced just days prior to kick off that the previous years miracle worker Tony Pulis would leave the club apparently due to frustrations over lack of transfers (we’ve heard that one before!) although that was never confirmed. It was inconceivable then that the Eagles that day clad in yellow took a first half lead from a Brede Hangeland header, yet Arsenal completed a comeback with a late Aaron Ramsey winner after Laurent Koscielny had equalised.
Other memorable openers included our 2013 return to the top flight at home to Tottenham where a banner raised by the Holmesdale Fanatics depicted the villainous puppet from the Saw franchise looking ominously at the pitch with a statement saying “Palace are here, let the games begin”, making this potentially the strangest of a plethora of bizarre first match incidents. Yet we lost that one too despite a spirited showing from Ian Holloway’s rudimentary side, succumbing to a Roberto Soldado penalty on his Spurs debut.
These are just some of the season starters that I have spoken of yet other results include draws to Norwich (2004), Everton (2019) and Chelsea last season when Eberechi Eze’s legitimate free kick was ridiculously ruled out due to wall encroachment from Marc Guehi, a rule which wasn’t enforced at any stage during the rest of the campaign. However, the other losses not mentioned came against West Brom in 2016, Arsenal in 2022 and Brentford in 2024.
Overall, Palace have won five, drawn four and lost eight of their 17 Premier League opening fixtures.
On paper, that does not make particularly encouraging reading for Pierre Sage ahead of Saturday’s visit of Everton. However, history is there to be rewritten. The new boss has the opportunity to achieve something even Oliver Glasner could not by winning his first Premier League opener as Palace manager, while also ending the miserable recent run against the Toffees.
If he can manage that, perhaps supporters will start to believe that the club’s latest man in the dugout really is the real deal.
