Heavy Back To Back Defeats As Palace Suffer Newcastle Battering

What a difference a couple of games make. Ahead of the City game, an unbeaten run just about continued at Southampton, but any luck that was on the side of the Eagles had clearly run out.

MATCH INFORMATION

PLAYER RATINGS

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 11 Matheus FRANCA, 17 Nathaniel CLYNE, 25 Ben CHILWELL, 30 Matt TURNER       

OPPOSITION LINE-UP

UNUSED SUBSTITUTES – 1 Martin DUBRAVKA, 13 Matt TARGETT, 18 William OSULA, 67 Lewis MILEY

TEB VERDICT

There is always a fall after a high and two heavy defeats for Palace in a short space of time were just that.

You could point towards two key incidents involving Ebere Eze in the two games – the offside against City which would have made it 3-0 to the Eagles, and the penalty miss at Newcastle which would have been an equaliser.

It was not to be and Palace concede 10 goals in two games, with Oliver Glasner stretching his head. You must wonder why squad players have not been used in this run of busy games, two a week leading to the FA Cup semi-final.

The Austrian has enough in the bank for us not to start questioning him at this stage of the season with very little to play other than being all in for the FA Cup. Perhaps players have this on their mind and not wanting to get injured, as will many fans cringe and flinch at any knock key players are on the end of.

Regardless, these are professionals and while it is a long season and April is an exceptionally busy month of travelling and playing, they must do better. This was an awful performance against Newcastle and there must be a reaction against Bournemouth at Selhurst at the weekend.

It is very hard to name any players that came out of this game with any kind of credit at all, but you could suggest Daniel Munoz continued in the same vein as he has done all season down the right hand side.

POST GAME QUOTES

OLIVER GLASNER

“Newcastle were excellent and have showed this in the last few weeks. We couldn’t deal with their intensity and directness and pace. When we had the situation to get into the game it didn’t work. There are some days where nothing works, and at the same time everything worked for Newcastle.

Sometimes it’s better to not be too analytical and you have to just throw it in the bin. This is what we’ll do. Sometimes you don’t have the right answer. We’ve changed nothing but things aren’t working anymore. We have to be very honest. We’re Crystal Palace and if we don’t perform at our top level, Newcastle and Manchester City are better than us.

Maybe it’s good for us getting one step back. Now we’ll focus on the basics and remember what made us so strong. Now is not the time to point fingers. We’ll just look in the mirror and I’ll see what I can change a little bit.”

JASON TINDALL

“We spoke pre-game about maintaining the standards we set ourselves at the weekend, about being really aggressive and on the front foot. I thought the players went about that and executed that brilliantly.

We’ve got a fantastic squad and the balance of the team has been great. We’ve got players on the bench who can come on the pitch and make a difference. We’re confident, we’ve had a good run of results and we have to remain level-headed and work hard every day to go out and deliver performances.”

MATCH STATISTICS

UPCOMING FIXTURES