A night of high emotion at
Goodison Park got off to a poignant start as Everton and Crystal Palace
football clubs paid their respects to the ninety six football supporters who
lost their lives at Hillsborough on the twenty fifth anniversary of the
disaster in 1989. Children stood along the length of the pitch holding
Liverpool and Everton scarfs linked together during a minutes applause. It was
a moving and fitting tribute.
The game had important
implications for both teams. If Everton avoided defeat they would return to the
Champions League positions and as for Crystal Palace any victory would see them
reach the magical forty point mark. It was Crystal Palace that took the victory
to land a damaging blow to Everton’s Champions League hopes and secure the
tally of forty points, leading to manager Tony Pulis to declare Palace safe in
the Premier League at the end of a season for the first time.
When the match kicked off
Everton started well but Yannick Bolasie and Jason Puncheon’s pace on the wings
troubled Everton and brought Crystal Palace into the match. Palace’s pace
moving the ball up the field and the precision with which they passed it from
back to front was impressive with Maroanne Chemakh in from the start for the
injured KG Dikgacoi playing in a deep lying position, holding the ball up well
in support of the attack.
Indeed it was this combination
that gave Palace the lead on twenty three minutes when Bolasie’s pace led to a
cross which was palmed back into play by Tim Howard for Maroanne Chemakh to
calmly control the ball and tee up Jason Puncheon by laying the ball off for
him to slot the ball home past Howard on the half volley from the edge of the
box.
Palace led 1 – 0 at halftime
but Everton dominated the possession statistics with Speroni saving well from
Lukaku and Aiden McGeady putting a long range curler over the Palace crossbar.
Yet Yannick Bolasie remained dangerous not far short of unplayable and narrowly
missed the chance to double Palace’s lead when he struck the post from range.
The Eagles did double their lead four minutes into the second half when
defender Scott Dann scored his first goal for Palace when he rose unchallenged
in the Everton box to head home a Bolasie corner. Defenders such as Baines and Stones
failing to deal with the danger.
Everton seemingly got back
into the game on sixty one minutes just past the hour when substitute Stephen
Naismith bundled home a Leighton Baines nod back from a deep cross at the near
post by Kevin Mirallis to make it 2 – 1. The scoring continued and Crystal
Palace fought back on seventy three minutes when Cameron Jerome finished off a
classy move of neat pace and passing from the whole Crystal Palace team
especially Bolasie Puncheon and Chemakh to make it 3 -1. Everton made it a
nervous finish for the loud and boisterous travelling army of Crystal Palace
fans by making it 3 – 2 on eighty six minutes when Kevin Mirallis tapped home
when a Naismith shot was deflected into his path by a Julian Speroni save.
Between this 3 – 2 result to
get Palace to forty points there followed a nervous twelve minutes (8 of which
was stoppage time). The toffees had chances to equalise during this time but
Speroni was again fantastic saving superbly from substitute Leon Osman with his
feet to turn the ball past his far post.
Palace reach forty points and
historic safety with four matches left this season. It is a tremendous
achievement by the Palace management and playing staff. Tony Pulis came in in
November in this campaign when Palace had seven points from thirteen matches,
since then Pulis has picked up thirty three points from the next seventeen
games a magnificent achievement that rightly sees Tony Pulis up for consideration
for manager of the year.
Now Crystal Palace have
secured a second consecutive season of Premier League football for the first
time in their history they now face the very exciting prospect of Crystal
Palace enjoying regular spells at top flight level under the tutelage and guidance
of Pulis’s expert leadership. For this reason alone Crystal Palace fans could
not be happier, even if the antics of the bizarre Vincent Tan wants to sully
Palace’s name and reputation over a farfetched espionage saga. Pathetic is not
the word but when all is said and done this campaign as well as being enjoyable
it may turn out to be one of the most significant in the clubs proud recent
history.
No comments:
Post a Comment