Crystal Palace vs Aston Villa Post-Match Thread

[ciggiesnbeer]

Warnock, for once, not being a twat with his post-match comments:

Crystal Palace manager Neil Warnock speaking to BBC Sport: "I think if we had Christian Benteke we would have won comfortably and that is what we are looking for in January. We are just missing that quality at the front.
"We do need that Benteke and they are hard to come by. Hopefully we can get one sooner rather than later.
"I can't fault the lads and now we have to do it the difficult way and get points at some tough places. We didn't create enough in the box.
"Sometimes you have to make your own luck and we didn't do that, although we huffed and puffed. We are shooting ourselves in the foot."

Fairplay to him. Two very similar quality sides, but one has a high quality forward and the other doesn't.

[FatSam]

On my way home, and haven't read the thread. Pleased with the win, but God do we lack ideas. Positives for me were Hutton's performance (my MOTM), another game for Okore to get up to speed (thought he did ok), and Benteke's goal. Otherwise it was pretty shit. Guzan's kicking, Clark's distribution, and a general lack of any kind of plan as to how to break the opposition down, were the main negatives for me.

[Villa in Denmark]

Lambert is lucky three times over tonight.
Lucky that Joe Cole's max 80 minutes in a calendar year contract meant that we had to bring on Sanchez (who I thought did well, especially considering whenever he won the ball there wad never anyone within 20 yards of him.)
Lucky that Benteke is a class above and still gives enough of a shit to work for his money (unlike someone like Balotelli)
Lucky that Palace had one of those nights where they could have played until midnight and not scored.

Plus points.
Hutton looks like a professional footballer and actually showed some of that mythical nous several times in the last 10 minutes.

Clark looks like the time out of the firing line has done him the world good based on the last 3 games. He might still have a career at this level.

Benteke has still got it.

Sanchez did well in a one man midfield.

Okore continues to show promise and good luck trying to muscle him off the ball.Don't know if 3 games in 8 days after 14 months out caught up with him, but a lot of his errors looked like the sort of mistakes you make when you're knackered.

Rest of it from pretty posh to bloody awful.
Sisokho.  Another in a fine line of left backs who've started off OK and then gone downhill quicker than an olympic skier.

Cleverley. Please tell me the 8 million is paid in biscuit crumbs. Anything else is robbery.

Gabby and Weimann.  Other than Andi running around a lot (I liked the dog running after a ball description on the match thread) what do they actually contribute to our attacking play?

The manager. Well he's bought himself and us a little breathing space, but bloody hell we're awful to watch. Tactics that make Sunday pub football look like a battle between tica taca and German power.
Here's hoping this 4 game unbeaten run doesn't unleash what the last one did.

[PeterWithesShin]

I don't think we were lucky to win. There's a reason why Palace were shit in the final third, it' because they're rather shit overall. We were crap to watch, but we deserved the win tonight.

[oldtimernow]

when will we get to the magical 20 point mark......perhaps at OT

[Rudy65]

Lambert is lucky three times over tonight.
Lucky that Joe Cole's max 80 minutes in a calendar year contract meant that we had to bring on Sanchez (who I thought did well, especially considering whenever he won the ball there wad never anyone within 20 yards of him.)
Lucky that Benteke is a class above and still gives enough of a shit to work for his money (unlike someone like Balotelli)
Lucky that Palace had one of those nights where they could have played until midnight and not scored.

Plus points.
Hutton looks like a professional footballer and actually showed some of that mythical nous several times in the last 10 minutes.

Clark looks like the time out of the firing line has done him the world good based on the last 3 games. He might still have a career at this level.

Benteke has still got it.

Sanchez did well in a one man midfield.

Okore continues to show promise and good luck trying to muscle him off the ball.Don't know if 3 games in 8 days after 14 months out caught up with him, but a lot of his errors looked like the sort of mistakes you make when you're knackered.

Rest of it from pretty posh to bloody awful.
Sisokho.  Another in a fine line of left backs who've started off OK and then gone downhill quicker than an olympic skier.

Cleverley. Please tell me the 8 million is paid in biscuit crumbs. Anything else is robbery.

Gabby and Weimann.  Other than Andi running around a lot (I liked the dog running after a ball description on the match thread) what do they actually contribute to our attacking play?

The manager. Well he's bought himself and us a little breathing space, but bloody hell we're awful to watch. Tactics that make Sunday pub football look like a battle between tica taca and German power.
Here's hoping this 4 game unbeaten run doesn't unleash what the last one did.

As ive been saying since Jesus was a lad the front three dont work. Far better to have a creative player like jack or Richardson instead of gabby. Feel a bot sorry for Andi. He is striker being continually asked to play wide right just in front of Hutton. bonkers

[LTA]

Our first win at Selhurst since a certain Mr Atkinson ran the length of the pitch and scored the goal of the season in 1992.

Sure we won there in 96/97 when Wimbledon played there

[frank]

I was there and I feel a lot more encouraged than many of you. We didn't capitulate as we did against Spurs and Burnley. We defended resolutely,  with Guzan, Hutton,  Clark and Okore all having good games. Westwood was effective in an unshowy way. Benteke was a handful and scored a fine goal. And we won at Palace,  something I've only seen us do once or twice in 40 years. So I'm not moaning, I'm celebrating.

[Clampy]

Sanchez did well I thought.

Agbonlahor and Weimann didn't offer much.

Sanchez looks like he has excellent technique, but frequently looks absolutely terrified.

At least once a game, he get's the ball, goes on a run, seems to run out of ideas then loses it. Other than that, I really do like him. He looks a bargain at £4m.

As for the game, it's a good and much needed win. That said, we can't keep trying to catch teams on the break like we're doing because more often than not, we'll lose. We look a decent side when we've got the ball, but we don't keep it enough. It's annoying because there's something to work with there.

[ChicagoLion]

We were second best for pretty much the whole game.
We got away with it and most times if you play like that you will deservedly get beat.
Love the win but hate the way this manager sets tis team up. Clueless

[lovejoy]

....and home. I love Palace, such an easy place to get back from.

[olaftab]

Aston Villa manager Paul Lambert: "We are unbeaten in four and have won at a difficult place. Coming here [and winning] was a massive result, but I thought it was well deserved.
"I thought it was a big, big performance. I have played with some world class strikers and Christian Benteke, if he keeps progressing, could be one of the best. The performance was massive for us.
"We are up to 12th, we have had a lot of players out, so the progress is there. I understand the disappointment because Aston Villa are a huge, huge football club."

[OCD]

After the run we've had, you just need to get a win. If that means winning a horrible game, so be it. I just hope the confidence we get from that allows to play better stuff in the next games.

[Exeter 77]

Our first win at Selhurst since a certain Mr Atkinson ran the length of the pitch and scored the goal of the season in 1992.

Sure we won there in 96/97 when Wimbledon played there

I thought the game in 92 was at Plough Lane.

[Matt Collins]

I'm a can of westwood but I thought he was poor. Sanchez did wel

The shape was really terrible though. There was normally at most one option for the man on the ball. You want two or three