SAM’S DEBT TO VAN MAN
Palace take a giant step to safety as Allardyce clocks up his second league win
SAM ALLARDYCE had been typically bullish in his assessment of Crystal Palace’s survival chances on Friday.
The message to his players was: Listen to me and I’ll keep you up.
And here at Selhurst Park yesterday, his players provided hope that all is not lost in their campaign to escape the drop.
It wasn’t pretty. But it rarely is with Allardyce teams. Effective, though? Absolutely.
This, the manager’s second league win since taking over, lifted Palace out of the bottom three. Perhaps more pertinently, though, it proved that the penny is finally starting to drop for Palace.
They didn’t give Middlesbrough a moment to breathe. Their workrate was off the scale.
This is the level of application required in relegation scraps. Allardyce knows that more than most. His players are grasping it now.
‘It’s an important win and clean sheet for us; we showed resilience today,’ he said. ‘We made the right decisions, made the right runs and passes. That was encouraging for me and that’s from the concentration of the last few weeks.
‘It’s good for the confidence and when the confidence is there the quality is better. The only way we can relieve the pressure is by winning games.’
As for Middlesbrough, they’ll be taking a worried look below them. Aitor Karanka’s team simply weren’t at the races. They were lucky to lose only 1-0.
If anyone at the Riverside were trying to convince themselves they aren’t in a relegation battle, reality struck at Selhurst Park.
‘We know what situation we are in and we have to stick together,’ said Karanka. ‘The first half we didn’t realise how important this game was. I don’t know why we didn’t approach the first half like the second, when we knew this was a big game for us.’
Palace controlled the first half, and the troubles of the past fortnight seemed a distant memory when Patrick van Aanholt fired home beautifully from the edge of the area.
The only negative for Palace at half-time was that they had not scored more goals, with Christian Benteke squandering two early chances.
Had Palace debutant Mamadou Sakho not got a vital touch on the ball just moments before Cristhian Stuani pulled the trigger from close range, the opening 45 minutes could have taken on a different complexion.
Instead, in the 34th minute, Palace scored the goal their performance deserved, Van Aanholt coolly slotting home from 18 yards after Daniel Ayala’s poor defensive header. Had Victor Valdes not been equal to Jason Puncheon’s powerful strike, then Karanka’s halftime team talk would have taken on an even grumpier tone. The Boro boss brought on January signing Rudy Gestede in place of Alvaro Negredo up front after the break. And had Sakho not made another block on Stani the visitors might have equalised within minutes of the restart. Wayne Hennessey was also on point to stop Gaston Ramirez’s freekick in the 54th minute.
These were worrying moments for Palace, the urgency of their first-half performance deserting them.
Hennessey was called upon again on 57 minutes, fortunate to stop Stuani’s half-volley which flew straight at him.
But in Wilfried Zaha, Palace have someone capable of conjuring magic even during their blips. Two blistering runs through the heart of Boro’s defence had Karanka quaking, but Benteke and substitute James McArthur could not finish off Zaha’s good work. Palace were then denied what looked a certain penalty on 76 minutes when Stewart Downing got himself into a complete mess inside his own area.
But instead of pointing to the spot when Downing tripped McArthur, who had stolen he ball, referee Bobby Madley booked the Palace midfielder for diving.
Madley doesn’t have the benefit of TV replays, but if he did, Palace would have been awarded a penalty. Simple as that.
Downing was then lucky not to concede another penalty after tripping Zaha in the box — much to Allardyce’s annoyance.
The Palace manager was probably fearing the worst at that point. But that would have been a massive injustice, and justice finally prevailed to give the Eagles’ survival hopes a huge boost.