[Match Report]: CRYSTAL PALACE 0 - 1 TOTTENHAM
As well
as Soldado, the Spurs head coach named two of his other new signings - Nacer
Chadli and Paulinho - in the starting line-up while Etienne Capoue had to
settle for a place on the substitutes’ bench. Marouane Chamakh, signed from
Arsenal a week ago, was not deemed fit enough to start by Palace manager Ian
Holloway so was named of the bench with new signings Dwight Gayle and Stephen
Dobbie given the job of leading the line alongside Aaron Wilbraham.
A
frantic opening 10 minutes had chances at a premium, and when the first effort
on goal arrived in the 13th minute, the frame of the goal denied Mousa Dembele.
Aaron Lennon combined neatly with the Belgian but his 25-yard strike clipped
the top of the crossbar on its way over.
Gylfi
Sigurdsson brought the first save from Julian Speroni in the closing 10 minutes
of the half with Lennon again involved as he found the Iceland midfielder on
the edge of the penalty area with his back to goal. He turned away from the
Palace defence but his right-footed shot was well tipped over by the Palace
goalkeeper.
After a
frustrating opening period the visitors broke the deadlock early in the second
half after Moxey's handball was punished by referee Mark Clattenburg.Soldado
immediately collected the ball and confidently converted the spot-kick to get
his Spurs career off to a scoring start.
The
visitors should have doubled their lead in the 69th minute after excellent
build-up play between Kyle Walker and Soldado. The England full-back rolled a
perfect pass into the Spaniard’s stride, and his pull-back to Sigurdsson gave
the Icelander a clear sight of goal, but he dragged his shot wide.
Chamakh
and Kevin Phillips were introduced late in the game by the hosts but neither
was able to find a way through a resolute Tottenham defence, and Kagisho
Dikgacoi was denied by superbly by an onrushing Hugo Lloris in the dying
moments to preserve Spurs' three points.
Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway: "I'm
a bit disappointed, to be honest, we normally play a bit quicker and sharper
than that with the ball. I was disappointed with our movement and our passing.
The honeymoon period is over and the lads have to start believing in
themselves.
"We
need to learn quickly. We need to counter attack quicker and sharper than we
did. We've got to get used to where we are and we've got to deal with it, when
we had the ball we didn't do enough with it. At the moment with this group I
might have to defend my way to victory. We need some more pace up front."
"Chamakh
should be able to train next week and [Jose] Campana will have another week. We
should be in a much better scenario next week."
Spurs head coach Andre Villas-Boas: "[It
was] a good performance. There's always a surprise factor to Palace because of
the amount of signings that they have brought [in] and the fact that we don't
know them as well as the other teams so I'm extremely happy with the
performance.
"We
had good chances during the whole of the 90 minutes, chances to put the game to
bed when we were 1-0 up, so I can only be pleased with the performance. Overall
we were the deserved winners. Most of the [new signings] arrived at a later
stage [of pre-season], particularly Soldado and Paulinho.
"We
can only see them develop towards the future. Bearing in mind for all of them
the Premier League is a different proposition in terms of intensity and passion
they did extremely well."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment