Crystal Palace vs Bournemouth

Updated: Aug 4, 2023

Hi everybody,

Hope you are all well

On May 12th 2019 I went to Selhurst Park to watch Palace's last game of the season against Bournemouth. It was a very eventful game, probably the best Palace game I have been too and the weather topped it off being a lovely sunny day.

It was an emotional day for palace fans as we had to say goodbye to two Palace legends, Jason Puncheon and Julian Speroni. They have both played a massive part in Palace history.

The game started at 3pm and we got off to a good start almost scoring in the 4th minute after Milivojevic got a shot on goal but the ball was met by the post. Then the goals just kept coming. The first was in the 24th minute, when Batshuayi scissor kicked the ball into the back of the net. Soon after Palace were able to get a second goal which again came from Batshuayi and was assisted by Wan-Bissaka. Bournemouth attempted to get a comeback after Wilson was able to get a shot off in the 34th minute but he was unsuccessful. After, Zaha sprinted down the left and was able to get a shot off which was met by the Bournemouth goalkeeper who was only able to parry into the path of Bournemouth defender Simpson who couldn't manage to get it under control and scored an own goal. It was now 3-0 to Palace. In the 42nd minute there was a minute of applaud for one of our own, Jason Puncheon who is leaving the club, his name rang around the stadium. Shortly after this Bournemouth got a goal back in the 44th minute scored by Lerma. It was then half time. This half time was spent giving out awards to under 15 Academy players who had previously won their cup final. Congratulations to them all! The second half was another eventful half, Palace tried to get an early goal after Townsend found space to take his shot in the 49th minute but was unsuccessful in scoring. Then in the 57th minute Bournemouth scored their second goal of the day. The goal came from Jordan Ibe. The last 30 minutes was very intense because there were many more goals. The first came in 65th minute from Patrick Van-Annholt after he played a one-two with Zaha and was able to strike the ball through the legs of the Bournemouth goalkeeper making it 4-2 to Palace. Then Max Meyer almost scored another goal after narrowly putting the ball passed the post. But in the 75th minute Joshua King was able to score another goal for Bournemouth to make it 4-3, was the comeback on? In the 79th minute there was an incident between Zaha and a Bournemouth player. Zaha was the one who ended up with the yellow card, this gave the bournemouth fans reason to torment him by singing "he's gonna cry in a minute". This gave him even more determination to then go onto assist a cracking goal after getting passed two Bournemouth defenders and feeding the ball into the path of Townsend who was able to score the 5th and final goal for Palace. In the 88th Minute some subs were made for Palace. Batshuayi left the pitch which could of been the last game we see him wearing a Palace shirt because his season long loan has now ended, he was bought off for Wickham. Zaha was the other player to leave the pitch, he received a standing ovation from the Palace fans after they'd seen an amazing performance from him. The final sub was for Townsend who left the pitch for Luke Dreher who was making his premier league debut for Palace after coming up from the academy. This was the final piece of action for this season and the final score was 5-3 to Palace. This was an amazing result after such a poor home record they had been having.

15 minutes after the game the Palace players reentered the pitch for the end of season lap of honour which was when all of the players and their families walked around the pitch, celebrating the end of season with the fans. It was also an opportunity for Jason Puncheon and Julian Speroni to say goodbye.

After the game I stayed behind to meet some of the players. I was able to see Patrick Van-Annholt, Luka Milivojevic, Bakery Sako, Michy Batshuayi, Jason Puncheon, Julian Speroni, club legend Clinton Morrison, Roy Hodgson, James McArthur and lastly the new player Luke Dreher who was kind enough too give me his match worn boots and signed them!