Crystal Palace Fan View: Eagles fight back for a point against West Ham

First-half nearly cost us everything

The first-half was a complete write-off from a Palace perspective. For the first half an hour, neither Crystal Palace nor West Ham looked like they were going to create anything of note, it was a pretty insipid and boring display, only made worse by West Ham punishing us when they did come forward.

Ward was caught out of position for the first and Milivojevic lost possession in his own half with most of his teammates ahead of him. West Ham were clinical with the chances that came from those lapses by Palace, both were excellent finishes, but the story of the game as a whole shows they had two shots on target in the whole game and scored from both of them.

It was an unwanted throwback to Tuesday night against Bristol City – West Ham weren’t that good but once again we found ourselves on the wrong end of the scoreline at half-time. It was certainly hard to conceive us getting anything out of the game at that point.

Read more: Back to reality after Bristol City humbling

Read more: Wilfried Zaha steers Eagles towards road to redemption

Inspired Joe Hart ensures West Ham get something from the game

Joe Hart has had a tough couple of seasons. Pep Guardiola’s arrival in Manchester signalled his departure from City but he failed to impress, even at Torino. His position as England’s first choice has come under increasing scrutiny on all sides, but on Saturday he was the difference between West Ham picking up a point, as opposed to being on the end of an embarrassing turnaround.

In the first-half, there was a double save from Tomkins and Schlupp, at 1-0. In the second, he parried away a fierce strike from Zaha, palmed Cabaye’s free-kick round the post and followed all that up by denying Tomkins again with the smallest of touches onto the bar from a header. If that had gone in, we’d have had six minutes of added time in which to batter West Ham, and any neutral observer wouldn’t have bet against Crystal Palace nicking a winner.

Crystal Palace were the better side overall, but both an inspired Joe Hart and our own lapses ensured that was not reflected in the scoreline at the end of the game.

Read more: Another set-piece goal robs Eagles

Read more: Eagles must prove Chelsea fightback wasn’t a one-off

Crystal Palace up for the fight?

We should be wary of celebrating a draw against a team with just a handful of points more than us, with their manager seemingly on the brink of being sacked, but in our situation we must acknowledge little victories. Again Wilfried Zaha will get the plaudits, his second-half performance was majestic – he was a constant and pressing thorn in the side of West Ham’s defence and ultimately got the goal which levelled the game.

He was the tip of the iceberg when it came to performances though. Andros Townsend once again ran himself into the ground for the cause, Fosu-Mensah proved much more effective at full back than Joel Ward and that is the best performance I have seen from Yohan Cabaye in a very long time. His dogged attitude, strong tackling and quality on the ball really shone in the second half and the whole midfield trio looks so much stronger without Puncheon. Then there is Roy Hodgson. He made changes just after half-time, changed the personnel in the system slightly and boy, did they pay off!

If we leave the Bristol City game aside, we can and should take real heart from the last three games. We have beaten Chelsea, could very well have had a point away at Newcastle, who have enjoyed a very good start to the season, and could conceivably have won yesterday against West Ham. I grant that two of those results didn’t actually pan out, and we’re making our job no easier by switching off for periods in the game, but the potential is clearly there.

If we continue to play as we have for the majority of the last three games, we will comfortably stay in this league, I honestly believe that.