Sam so sorry for dreadful display
Fan fury as Sunderland crush Palace
FROM all sides of this stadium, the chanting began. First came the Crystal Palace fans admonishing their players. ‘You’re not to fit wear the shirt’, they sang. Then the Sunderland end joined in. ‘Big Sam, What’s the score?’ they teased their former manager.
For Crystal Palace, a rotten performance and dire result was not the height of the infamy.
On half-time, with Palace trailing 4-0, a supporter invaded the pitch and confronted defender Damien Delaney. A steward intervened but the toxicity of the atmosphere was startling in its intensity. Fans hurled insults at their own players, anger etched across their faces. Tensions boiled over, with Palace having now taken only seven points from 36 at home this season.
On the full-time whistle, supporters grappled with stewards, striving to get at the Palace players being shepherded down the tunnel. FA charges may follow.
Before the game, Allardyce had been all smiles, even dancing a jig with mascot Pete the Eagle. A midweek win at Bournemouth had suggested Palace may be on an upward curve. Another demonstration of Allardyce’s immunity to relegation appeared to be in the cards.
And then this happened. Abject defeat, the big daddy of all defeats. To put this in context, Sunderland arrived in London with one win from their previous nine Premier League games, having had scored six away goals all season.
They began this match with Jermain Defoe as the only member of the starting XI to have scored in the top-flight all season. And the team featured the unfortunate Jack Rodwell, who had failed to win on any of his last 39 Premier League starts.
What followed, therefore, defied all logic.
Sunderland scored four goals without reply — three in the final five minutes of the first-half — to leave Palace 4-0 down by the interval. There was no refereeing injustice to hide behind, no sideshows to divert attention. Indeed, Palace had even taken Sunderland’s key player, Patrick van Aanholt, in a £14m transfer this week. ‘We have got a better team,’ the Dutchman said upon signing. ‘No disrespect to Sunderland but I think we are more compact.’ A penny for his thoughts tonight. Palace’s players were dreadful. ‘Fans show approval if team plays well, fans show disapproval if you don’t show the level,’ Allardyce said. ‘In the Premier League, they expect to see more entertainment than they’ve seen all season. I apologise to them for what they saw today.’ To observe everything through the lens of Palace’s failings would do Sunderland a disservice. They won thanks to their own organisation, vibrancy and clinical edge, not merely because their opponents were so poor. David Moyes had the more robust defence, the livelier midfield and in Defoe, the most potent forward on the pitch.
‘Today was a big win for us,’ Moyes said. ‘We scored big goals at the right moment.’
The ordeal for Palace began on 10 minutes. Sebastian Larsson hung a free-kick into the penalty area, where Lamine Kone kept the ball alive. As Billy Jones challenged, goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey dropped the ball and Kone hooked it in. Palace rallied briefly. James Tomkins spurned a gilt-edged header from close range and the team then lost midfielder Yohan Cabaye to injury. They began to lose their way. ‘Fear,’ Allardyce grimaced. ‘When the first goal went in, we lost control. Fear overtook the players. The mind was infused, players were doing stuff we didn’t want them to be doing. Frailty showed in the defending.’
Sunderland sensed blood and in five extraordinary minutes at the end of the half, a drama became a crisis for Allardyce.
The second goal was beautiful in its execution. Didier Ndong galloped through the midfield and, as Palace retreated, the Sunderland player let fly and dispatched a rasping strike into the goal from 25 yards. To paraphrase Claudio Ranieri, dilly ding dilly Ndong.
Disintegration ensued. Sunderland sprang away on the counter. Manchester United loanee Adnan Januzaj has had a troublesome few years but here the Belgian was at his most devastating. He sped away from Palace defenders and teed up Defoe, who took one touch to control before firing a clinical left-footed strike into the bottom corner. ‘A predator,’ Moyes grinned.
From the next attack, another goal. Januzaj slid through to Defoe, who checked back and fired into the goal via a deflection. The half-time whistle blew and that was the starting pistol for the fans’ revolt.
Allardyce replaced Delaney with Andros Townsend and sent his players out five minutes early for the second-half, clearly on the end of a rollicking from their manager.
They summoned some spirit, forcing the best from Sunderland’s goalkeeper Vito Mannone. Ultimately, it was to no avail.