Tottenham vs Crystal Palace 22/23

Hi everyone,

Hope you’re all well.

On Saturday 6th May 2023, I travelled to North London to watch Crystal Palace away to Tottenham. Due to the King’s coronation travelling was a lot harder than normal but thankfully my grandparents were able to drive me to the stadium, the drive surprisingly only took 1 hour 30 minutes getting us to the stadium with lots of time to spare. To commemorate the coronation the national anthem was sang before kick-off. I had been to Tottenham before and we sat in the same area behind the goal, we had a great view until the stand started to fill up then people began to block the view, although it was pouring with rain so I’m very grateful we weren’t on pitch side!

Palace came into this game off the back of an eventful 4-3 win over West Ham. Tottenham is always a tricky place to go, but hopefully with the confidence with the previous games Palace could give them a strong battle.

Ironically, Tottenham’s last game was a 4-3 defeat away to Liverpool, Ryan Mason’s team have had a rough few game weeks losing to the likes of Newcastle and Bournemouth which were both high scoring matches. They sat 7th in the league with 54 points, just one point behind Brighton so winning this game would put them into Europe positions giving them extra motivations.

Roy Hodgson once again named an unchanged starting 11, in which academy graduate Tyrick Mitchell was named for his 100th appearance for Palace.

A first half stoppage time Harry Kane header saw the home side leave with the three points.

The game began very open, and that is probably the best word to describe the whole game. Sam Johnstone was called to action early on, his clearance was won in the air by Ben Davis before being flicked on by Harry Kane to an onrushing Richarlison clear on goal; the Palace keeper remained strong and blocked the shot with his outstretched leg. The offside flag was up so wouldn’t have counted anyway.

Similarly to last week’s game against West Ham, Palace did well to close down their opponents. Under pressure from Jeffery Schlupp, Oliver Skipp, lost the ball to Ebere Eze the midfielders through ball to a driving Schlupp was intercepted by Clement Lenglet out for a corner.

From the corner Michael Olise found Joel Ward at the back post but the defender could only aim it into Fraser Forster’s hands.

At the other end the home side had a chance of their own from a corner; Cristian Romero’s header was denied by the crossbar.

Spurs continued to ask questions of Palace’s defence Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg was allowed to run through multiple men in red and blue before playing a one-two with Kane and finally blazing his shot over the bar – warning signs for Palace but they survived a little longer.

Palace tried to hit the hosts on the break through Wilfried Zaha, his pace got himself down the wing before performing some stepovers to get into the box while being marked by two men in white, he pulled the ball back into the box but no teammates were able to capitalise allowing a simple clearance.

Joachim Andersen got on the end of an Olise cross, but his shot went just over the bar. Both teams had countless opportunities but neither could make the breakthrough.

In stoppage time of the first half it was Tottenham that broke the deadlock. Pedro Porro was allowed lots of space to run into down the right wing, Palace failed to close him down giving him time to lift his head and find his teammate Kane who rose beating Ward to bury the ball into the back of the net – becoming the second highest goal scorer in the Premier League.

After going into the break unlucky to be behind Palace came out for the second half with motivation to get back into the game. Zaha came the closest in the early stages but as he tried to pick out the top corner his shot went just over the bar.

The quality throughout the pitch didn’t lack it was just in the final third! Again on the counterattack Zaha picked out Eze who brought the ball down with some lovely control but his shot was scuffed went wide of the post.

Despite not being needed for most of the match Johnstone again made a great low save to deny Son Heung-Min who was driving towards goal after receiving a long up field from Romero, keeping the score only 1-0.

After searching and searching Palace failed to find an equaliser leaving the three points in Tottenham.

The game wasn’t the most eventful but losing 1-0 isn’t the worst, I don’t think we played bad in any areas and was misfortunate to concede when we did because apart from that there wasn’t much threat. I do think Cheick Doucoure had a good game with the ball mainly being in the middle of the park. We now only have three games left in which we can hopefully rack up the points and finish the season on a high!

Our next game is at home to Bournemouth next weekend where Roy can look to put things right!

Thank you for reading.

Ellie Xx