Tough for Nuno but Palace find it nice and Eze
ROY HODGSON’S return to Eze street sent opposite number Nuno Espirito Santo spiralling deeper into his worst period as Wolves boss.
Eberechi Eze’s 60th-minute strike ended a miserable run of just one win in 10 games for Palace.
It also lit up a game which had done little to warm the soul on a miserable afternoon in South London.
Eze showed the deftest of touches on the edge of the area before powering a left foot shot into the net.
Hodgson said: “He’s a good player and is doing very well. I don’t think he will be a tap-in man.
“The goals he gets will be up there for goals of the month.
“He scores very good goals. The important thing is the goals he has got is a very good return for a midfield player.”
While the strike brought joy for Hodgson, it extended Nuno’s pain to just one win in 10 games.
The loss of leading scorer Raul Jimenez has been a massive setback, with Wolves picking up just six points since he suffered a horrific head injury at Arsenal in mid-december.
But Nuno’s side looked a shadow of the one that spent the summer in Germany playing a Europa League quarter-final.
And the shrewd Portuguese boss was scathing of his side’s performance.
Nuno said: “It was not one of the best performances. We came with the expectation to try and improve to build on our momentum. We were organised in the first half – second half, not so much as we were chasing the result.
“We lacked creativity and speed in our possession and circulation. We lacked passes to break the lines of Palace. We didn’t do it.
“There were a lot of things missing. We didn’t recover the ball like we should do. We have a lot of concerns – creativity, speed and breaking the lines. We should do better.”
For 45 minutes this was the sort of game pools panels were invented for.
There was nothing to separate the two sides coming into the game, in points or form and it was not until the final minutes of the first half that Palace got in behind Conor Coady’s well-drilled troops.
However, Michy Batshuayi hooked the ball over from six yards. Eze showed him how it should be done when he drilled a shot from the edge of the box past Rui Patricio.
Willian Jose had a golden opportunity to level with a free header from a corner but Vicente Guaita reacted brilliantly to keep the ball out.