Match Review: Crystal Palace 1-1 Brighton

For the first 75 minutes of the 142nd instalment of the Crystal Palace v Brighton rivalry, it’s hard to recall a more one sided encounter in the history of this heated fixture.

Okay, there was that time that Andy Johnson went ballistic and Palace stuck five past Michel Kuipers, but we’ve conveniently forgotten that ever happened. Paul Brooker made a tackle you say? And got sent off for it? Don’t be silly.

With an hour gone at Selhurst Park, Andy Naylor sent out a tweet with a few little statistics from the game unfolding in front of us.

The score was Palace 0-1 Brighton. The shot count was Palace 0-10 Brighton. The on target count was Palace 0-7 Brighton. The corners count was Palace 0-7 Brighton. The possession percentages were Palace 32-68 Brighton. As Naylor put it, “total domination”.

Unfortunately for us, Palace had a half-decent goalkeeper between the sticks. Vicente Guaita didn’t really make any outstanding saves over the course of 90 minutes, but Brighton did test him with a number of difficult shots which you suspect that Nazi fanboy Wayne Hennessey might have struggled with. Guaita proved what a difference a good goalkeeper can make on a night like this.

There was one other Palace player who made a difference and there were no prizes for guessing who it was. Brighton’s six points from Palace last year from a 3-1 home win and a 2-1 away win came about largely because Wilfried Zaha’s only contribution in the two fixtures was to have somebody throw a chicken and gammon pie at him in a very middle class example of football hooliganism.

It looked like it would be a similar story this time around. Zaha’s only real involvement in the opening 70 minutes was to go down under challenges from Yves Bissouma and Davy Propper, the latter escaping a booking presumably because he is so handsome.

So ineffective was Zaha that Martin Montoya was even able to spend most of the first half attacking rather than dealing with the threat of Palace’s golden child.

In fact, it was Montoya bursting into the box from right back to latch onto a perfect pass from the outstanding Propper that led to the game’s main talking point.

Montoya appeared to be clipped by Jairo Reidewald but still managed to get his shot away. In fact, the Spanish right back made absolutely nothing of the obvious contact there had been and despite VAR taking around 25 minutes to look at it, no penalty was the eventual decision.

In the pre-VAR era, it would have been harsh to award it against Reidewald – especially as referee Craig Pawson was unsighted. But when Michael Atkinson is sat in a television studio with a rollover Hotdog, a large Coke Zero and a 50 inch HD television watching it back from 45 different angles, then it’s perhaps an incident that should have resulted in a spot kick.

In some games, it would have done. Had Montoya been less honest and made something of a meal out of it, who knows what might have happened. And if Brighton then score the subsequent penalty before half time when they’re on top, then suddenly you’ve got a very different game on your hands.

But back to Zaha. He’d offered the first reminder that he was in fact on the pitch on 74 minutes when he twisted and turned his way down the left, teeing up James McCarthy for an overhead kick which was well saved by Ryan.

That was a warning that Brighton didn’t heed. Around two minutes later and they paid the price as Zaha cut in from his flank, bamboozled Montoya and smashed an unstoppable shot past Ryan at the Socceroo’s near post.

A moment of class from an annoyingly talented football player, one who will surely get a deserved move to a stage more deserving of his abilities than Selhurst Park within the next year.

That goal changed the complexion of the game and it was Brighton who were hanging on by the end. Palace went the first 68 minutes without having a shot. In the last 22, they took 11 – you don’t need to be the lovely Rachel Riley to work out that’s one every two minutes.

As a result, Graham Potter’s three substitutes were three defenders coming on – if we’re allowed to count Steve Alzate as a right back – as we attempted to hold on for a point.

Those changes meant that the Albion finished the game with four centre halves and three full backs on the pitch. Dan Burn, Lewis Dunk, Shane Duffy, Adam Webster, Alzate, Montoya and Bernardo were all out there. Now imagine for a minute if Chris Hughton did that? Somebody on Twitter would have genuinely exploded with rage.

All of this Palace domination was a far cry from how the game was going before Zaha’s moment of inspiration. In the first half, Aaron Mooy had whistled an effort just wide of the post and Propper and Yves Bissouma forced Guaita into showing excellent handling to hold onto distance strikes.

It was more of the same after the break. Palace were already struggling defensively without the services of Gary Cahill and Patrick van Aanholt.

They suffered a further blow when Riedewald was forced off at half time to be replaced by midfielder James McCarthy, who was asked to do a job out-of-position at left back.

The Albion identified this new weak link very quickly and so Trossard was moved a little wider to give McCarthy something to think about.

This was a tactical adjustment which paid dividends when Bissouma played an excellent switch out to the right and Trossard delivered a low cross which was fired home by Neal Maupay, scoring for the third consecutive Premier League game.

That goal gave us our first proper sight of Maupay’s famous bastard celebration. The Frenchman developed something of a reputation at Brentford for delighting in winding up opposition fans whenever he scored against them, most notably those of The Leeds United.

It’s nothing he’s really displayed in an Albion shirt until now. Needless to say, it was worth the wait as he ran in front of that weird stand with a Sainsbury’s attached to the back of it, shushing the Palace support.

The only thing that could have made the celebration better would have been if Maupay had scored in front of the Holmesdale End, with that twat with the megaphone was caught going mad because his mum had also just phoned to tell him his fish fingers and beans were ready and he had to come home for tea immediately.

Guatita made further good saves from Maupay, Bissouma and Trossard before Zaha’s moment of magic arrived to earn Palace an undeserved point.

Zaha has never hidden his dislike of Brighton in the past, but even he had to give praise to the Albion performance afterwards, saying “We barely had the ball, so even having any attacks we were too tired to even do anything. So props to them, they did their job.”

Roy Hodgson said similar, stating that the Albion gave a “Performance as good as any team we’ve seen here at Selhurst Park this season.” We’ll take that given that Palace have already faced Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester City in Croydon so far.

All three of those title challengers left with three points. Brighton should have done too, which is why this felt like two points dropped to a one-man team.

Still, it’s a far cry from 5-0 defeats which we’re still pretending never happened. We’re unbeaten in our past three meetings against Palace and have lost just one of the last six.

It feels like a changing of the guard is happening and, for the first time in 30 years, Brighton genuinely are the better side. Roll on February, when next time we can prove it with victory.