Crystal Palace 0 – 1 Southampton: Southampton Class Shines Through as Palace Toil in Sunshine Short of Ideas!

Crystal Palace made three changes in the sunshine as Southampton visited Selhurst Park safely ensconced in mid table with the Eagles still needing points to safely avoid relegation. Dean Moxey came in for Jonathan Parr at left back, Glenn Murray replaced the injured Chemakh up front and Jason Puncheon returned for Tom Ince in midfield. Palace struggled all day to create opportunities or cope with the guile and creativity of Southampton’s England quartet of Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Jay Rodrigues, and Ricky Lambert. Indeed it was Rodrigues who profited from a mistake on the halfway line following a Palace corner, when a weak header by Jason Puncheon sold Dean Moxey short in the left back position. Rodrigues beat Moxey to the ball and ran forty yards to challenge Julian Speroni in a tackle one on one and kicking the ball in the process into an unguarded net to make the score 1 – 0.

Both before and after the goal Palace struggled to create any clear cut chances, this despite putting in excess of fourteen crosses into the box. The problem was that Murray and later Jerome when running to support Murray were faced up the wrong way to goal and this meant the deep lying offside trap of Southampton was proving very effective at stopping Palace attacks. Ex Eagle Jose Fonte was paired at the centre of the defence with Dejan Lovran and alongside substitute Wanjama the Southampton defence was well drilled at playing the ball out from the back and as a result it coped easily with crosses into the box and Palace’s direct style. In a game of few chances Palace was short of ideas and although Bolasie drew a smart save from Artur Boric it was Southampton who dominated.

Palace failed to cope with the class of Southampton’s England midfielder Adam Lallana and England left back Luke Shaw. Lallana controlled midfield spraying balls around the park at will, bringing Lambert and Rodrigues and later Chambers into the game with ease. Lambert hit a post, Rodrigues scored the winning goal and Shaw drew a fine save from Speroni after a sharp run and shot. In a flat game from the hosts point of view and a comfortable match from Southampton’s viewpoint the difference in class on show dictated there was only going to be one winner. The fact Jay Rodrigues scored the only goal of the game on thirty seven minutes showed the scarcity of goal scoring chances throughout the game for both sides. It also probably reflected the second half improvement by Crystal Palace in coping with the creative threats of Lallana and Shaw.

Defeat for Crystal Palace does intensify the significance of the big game at the bottom of the table next weekend at the Stadium of Light against Sunderland as neither side are yet safe bunched up together as they are just two points apart at the bottom of the league in 19^th and 16^th place respectively.