This was the game in which the result caught up with our performances. The unbeaten run was nice but was hardly made up of silky football on our part. In this game you could equally say we should have won or we didn’t deserve to win. We dominated the play (it is hard to remember Palace actually playing) but I can only remember us making a distinctly nervous looking goaly work twice (ironically both times in the second half when we weren’t quite so dominant): the first time was a deflection in any case; and the second time the goaly made a spectacular looking save from a header, but to be honest if his positioning was a bit better it would have been fairly routine.
We again played 4-5-1. This has served us well in that it has allowed us to dominate midfield play and at its best allows Leadbitter in particular to support the attack from the middle and the wide men to come in as well. However, it is 4-5-1 and not 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 so a lot of the time the lone frontman has an awful lot to do. Connolly may or may not prove to be a good goal poacher (I think the jury is still out on him as an SAFC player) but I am pretty sure that he can’t bear the burden of being the whole front line. Too many balls through to him left him too much to do by himself. Notwithstanding that, in the early part of the game we could have been out of sight of them. Miller in particular but also Leadbitter and Kavanagh all had opportunities to see what the goalkeeper was made of but ended up either missing the target or hitting a defender.
When a game is going like that, you are hardly surprised when the opposition goes and scores. As half-time was getting closer, the ball somehow appeared around our penalty area. Our defence, who had little to do, decided to continue to do little and left their player with an enormous amount of time to get a shot on goal. Unlike our efforts he actually got it on target. The bloke behind me was annoyed at Ward but personally I think the one thing our defence did manage to do was cover his view of the shot until quite late and wouldn’t hold him responsible. Those of you who watched the match on the telly probably are better placed to know if he my fellow traveller was being harsh or I was being too generous.
The second half I was expecting us to step up a gear and apply the same domination but perhaps start getting some shots on target. Instead we seemed to step down a gear. We were still the team “most likely” but we seemed to be doing less in the final third than in the first half. This impression probably wasn’t helped by the fact that we were attacking the opposite end to the section of the stand the away support was in and that the fog kept drifting in so that at times you were struggling to make out exactly what was happening in the opposite corner. Keane used all three subs (Yorke, Brown (ho, hum) and someone else who I now can’t remember). However, it made very little difference and as the match neared its end Palace probably had their only little period of domination.
Keane was fairly critical of “some players” after the match as regards their approach. However, I still think our biggest problem is shortage of quality rather than that the attitude of the players is particularly poor. Having said that I agree with Keane that our habit of hitting the final third and then heading backwards rather than going for goal is frustrating and is a habit we can kick even with the current crop of players.
A defeat like this should not be a cause for too much depression. It was just a pity that the watching supporters we want to get back to the SoL will hardly have been inspired. However a big crowd is going to be there on Boxing Day against Dirty Leeds. After letting them beat us on the same date a couple of years ago, a good tonking of them will make everything seem better.