Crystal Palace Fan View: Wasted chance to ruin Tottenham's charge

Crystal Palace miss golden opportunities again

For the second weekend running I find myself lamenting Palace’s finishing and applauding the opposition goalkeeper. Last week Joe Hart pulled a few saves out of the top drawer and this weekend it was Paulo Gazzaniga that stood between Crystal Palace and at least a share of the points.

Scott Dann was denied, Andros Townsend thwarted and then my oh my, what a miss it was from Wilfried Zaha. As he rounded the keeper on the edge of the box he looked sure to end our goalless drought away from home and set us on our way to inflicting another upset on a big club. It was not to be, however.

We created chances, and more than just one or two, but once again a combination of good goalkeeping and some slightly awry finishing left us vulnerable. If we’d gone 2-0 up you couldn’t have said that would have been an unfair scoreline, and at that point Son’s goal is a mere blot on our copybook for the day as opposed to the fatal blow it turned out to be for our chances of picking up all three points.

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One mistake costs Crystal Palace

It’s hard to criticise any player after such a spirited performance, because we did so much well. As expected, Tottenham had all the possession but couldn’t break Palace down, to the point where I am struggling to think many saves Speroni had to make throughout the game. That’s testament not just to the defence but also to the monumental shift the midfield got through.

Yohan Cabaye was arguably the best of the bunch in that midfield, but it was a weak clearance from him that saw the ball fall at the feet of Son who tucked the ball away fantastically. All afternoon we’d taken a ‘no-nonsense’ approach – any danger was dealt with quickly and effectiveland few chances were taken. That momentary lapse was one of the few we made, defensively, all afternoon but we were punished for it and it cost us at least a point.

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Good performances won’t keep us in the Premier League

I think it’s unlikely that we will look back at the end of the season and pinpoint this game as the one which determined our fate, but the fact is that near-misses won’t keep us in the Premier League. I’m not for one moment suggesting there hasn’t been improvement since Hodgson took over, because there has, but having clear-cut chances every game means little if we don’t finish them.

When you’re playing teams like Tottenham it’s easy to take heart from performances, ‘if we play like this every week we’ll win more than we’ll lose’ is a cliched platitude for a reason. Crystal Palace are at the point now, however, where we must prove that platitude correct and transfer performances into results. We have 8 season-defining games between now and Christmas against teams we stand a realistic chance of beating. We play a struggling Everton side after the international break before Swansea, Bournemouth and Brighton, among other bottom-half teams.

Five or six wins will see us move clear of trouble, many fewer than that and we’ll be very much in amongst it heading into the New Year.