It was another dispiriting home defeat for Town after Crystal Palace comfortably won the game 2-0. While it was bad to lose to a relegation rival, the manner of the defeat is more of a concern. Town drifted back into the style of football that saw us give away points freely in January.
Here are some of my thoughts after the game.
Too many players had bad days
There were too many individuals in the Town team that played well below their best against Palace. To name names: Mooy, Schindler, Ince, Quaner, and Malone all put in poor performances. That’s not to say that they’re poor players, or that they aren’t good enough for this level. It’s just they didn’t do well enough on the day.
Aaron Mooy’s performance was a big factor in the result, as we rely on him so heavily to provide the quality and creative spark for the rest of the team. He’s still rusty after coming back from injury and isn’t anywhere near his best. The sad thing is that Mooy at 70% of his best is still better than the available alternatives at 100%.
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Crystal Palace were very good
While it’s tempting to start feeling depressed about Town’s performance, it’s worth mentioning that Crystal Palace played well. It’s a little bit annoying that they showed that kind of quality against us, when in other games they’ve been terrible this season.
Roy Hodgson has got Palace organised and his players worked hard to force errors out of Town and worked well as a unit to control the game after they took the lead. It felt like we got a taste of our own medicine in the early stages of the game, where their forwards wouldn’t let our defenders settle with the ball and we made some silly mistakes.
Saying that you’re “too good to go down” has been a kiss of death for underachieving Premier League teams, but Palace showed against Town that they’ve got the players that can keep them up. Injuries have hampered them at times, but with the players they’ve now got available to them I’d expect them easily pick up the points they need to stay up this year. This game means I’m now having doubts about whether the same is true for Town.
It’s going to be an exciting finish to the season
The remaining seven games are going to be very interesting for Town. Had we won this game and the Swansea game then we’d have enough points to feel secure. The solitary point from these two home games isn’t enough and we’re now going to have to pick up points from less likely sources.
A good run of results would have catapulted Town up the table and we may have enjoyed mid-table mediocrity in the closing stages of the season. As things stand it seems certain we’re going to be fighting it out at the bottom of the league and will potentially have to get points out of our difficult run-in of games against the big boys.
The international break has come at a good time
Town didn’t look good enough against Palace and we were outplayed in every department. Normally international breaks are an unwelcome break from the excitement of the Premier League but this one has come at a good time.
David Wagner has more of his squad available to him than most other managers in the league, so I’d hope he’ll use the next couple of weeks to work with his players and get them into shape for the last seven games of the season.
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