Palace Progress By Dumping Stubborn Oxford Out Of League Cup

No game is easy in this sport and so it proved as the Eagles managed to navigate a tricky away tie and progress from the second round for the first time in four seasons.

DATE/VENUE

23^rd August 2022 – Kassam Stadium, Grenoble Road, Oxford OX4 4XP

RESULT

Oxford United 0-2 Crystal Palace

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES –  28 Cheick DOUCOURE, 13 Vicente GUAITA, 45 Jack WELLS-MORRISON, 47 David BOATENG

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNSED SUBSTITUTES – 13 Simon EASTWOOD, 12 Jodi JONES, 4 Stuart FINDLAY, 32 Yoav SADE

TEB VERDICT

Patrick Vieira said in the build up that a number of first team players would feature in this fixture, and he was right. Momentum is key and while this proved to be a tricky away tie, enough was done to see Palace through to the third round of the competition. There was a full debut for Chris Richards who was solid in the centre of defence alongside Marc Guehi, while Sam Johnstone took the gloves for the first time for the club. It was also good to see debuts for youth academy graduates Kayden Rodney and Killian Phillips.

In terms of tactics, have two defensive midfielders was perhaps a little too cautious as it stifled what has been a creative outfit but there was instant progress as soon as changes were made. Jeffrey Schlupp left the bench to provide a glorious through ball for Odsonne Edouard to latch on to and fire into the back of the next. That looked enough to see the Eagles through , but safe passage was secured following a foul on another substitute, Jordan Ayew, in the area and Luka Milivojevic despatched as you would expect for what is his first goal for quite some time.

POST GAME QUOTES

PATRICK VIEIRA – “In the first half we were not into it and needed Sam to make that save in an important moment of the game, that allows us at half-time to go in at 0-0. We are at the beginning of the season and the players on the field today show me every day that they want to play, they want to start. So today was a good chance for them to show me they want to play every week.

They did it really well and that will bring more competition and make it more difficult for me to choose the starting XI. That’s what we want, everybody feels really invested in what we want to do. We want to take those games and try to go as far as we can.”

MATCH STATISTICS

UPCOMING FIXTURES

27/08/22 Manchester City (a) – Premier League (3pm)

30/08/22 Brentford (h) – Premier League (7.30pm)

03/09/22 Newcastle United (a) – Premier League (3pm)