Oliver Glasner does not believe in magic. He is an admirably pragmatic man who trusts his principles. He trusted them at the end of last season when Palace looked like worldbeaters and everything was going right, and he trusts them now when Palace look like relegation candidates and everything is going wrong. Give it time and equilibrium will return; the principles will have their effect. Or you could just wait for the visit of Tottenham.
Trust the processes all you like, Spurs will still be Spurs, a paradox that suggests there is some deeper process that ultimately matters far more than the surface processes that can be seen and analysed. They are a club with a fragile soul, capable always of producing a dreadful half from nowhere. Poor Mikey Moore, who made his full Premier League debut, barely got a look in. Rattled by Palace’s press, Spurs’ first half was their worst half of the season other than the second half at Brighton. If anything, it got worse after the break.
For Palace, it was a much-needed win, their first of the season, which should ease the pressure on Glasner. It still feels slightly bewildering that they’ve got to this pitch of anxiety so soon, with potential replacements being openly discussed. In the last seven games of last season, Palace took 19 points and scored 21 goals. “That was not the truth about Palace,” Glasner had said. But what is the truth? Is it this season, no wins and five goals from their eight games before this one? Surely not, but could Palace’s dismal start to this campaign really just be regression to the mean?
But there are reasons; there always are. Glasner has been openly critical of the way the club signed four players on deadline day. But even had their deals been completed in July, allowing them to be integrated before the start of the season, Palace had the fourth lowest net-spend in the division. The team who finished a place behind them last season, Brighton, spent £160m more than Palace in summer. Transfers aren’t everything, but that is placing Palace at a disadvantage. And it’s not as though the signings who did come in earlier in the window have made much of an impact so far. Daichi Kamada and Ismaïla Sarr, the two players who looked as though they might be able to replace at least some of Michael Olise’s creativity, are yet to muster either a goal or an assist this season.
For now the absences are far more obvious than their replacements. It’s not just that Olise’s imagination and drive has been lost, it’s that without his partner on the right drawing defenders out of the way and creating space, Daniel Muñoz has made far less impression, while Eberechi Eze is missing a partner with whom he enjoyed such a fruitful understanding. Similarly, Joachim Anderson’s defensive qualities are missed, but so too are his sweeping diagonal passes and switches of play. Jean-Philippe Mateta, after a golden finish to last season, had struggled to get going, which is perhaps the result of his exertions with France at the Olympics, but may also be to do with him simply getting less service. It hasn’t helped either that Palace’s midfield has been unsettled by injury. Cheick Doucouré has managed just one start while Adam Wharton, who made such an impression after signing from Blackburn in January, has been struggling with a groin issue, although he was a little more like his old self here, drawing a fine late save from Guglielmo Vicario with a long-range drive. To make matters worse, Jefferson Lerma, who was doing a fine job of stifling Dejan Kulsevski, was forced off midway through the first half.
Palace had trained with a back four this week, having trialled the system in a behind-closed-doors game against Ipswich in the last international break, in part because of Muñoz’s comparative ineffectiveness. But they started with the familiar Glasner 3-4-2-1 – although as he would say, what really matters are the principles of play. Those principles allowed Palace to unsettle Spurs with their press, leading to the opening goal after 31 minutes as Pedro Porro, rapidly closed down, played a horrible bouncing ball across his own box to Micky van de Ven, who was dispossessed by Muñoz. The Colombian’s cross was flicked on by Eze and Mateta slammed in his third of the season.
Spurs did have chances, a Van de Ven shot deflecting off Brennan Johnson and onto the post, while Dean Henderson made a fine low save from James Maddison, but the truth is that palace should have been out of sight by the mid-point of the second half, Eze and Mateta both snatching at very good opportunities.
That made for a nervier finish than it perhaps should have been but Palace’s season, at last, is up and running.
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