PALACE HALT LEADERS
West Ham 2 Crystal Palace 2
Say we are top of the league. Say we are top of the league. Go on, say it. See how it sounds. For that is the status West Ham are enjoying before and after this fixture that they don’t even win.
Palace however, this afternoon’s opposition, have the word spoiler running through them like a stick of rock. Remember their win at the Etihad and that goal by Andros Townsend. Okay, he’s at Everton now, but that shot. It bent away from the City keeper like an eel wriggling out of an expert fisherman’s oily hands. And the bloke has ‘dross’ in his name and yet he can do things like that. They fool you somehow, make you imagine they’re a pushover. Yes, the Andy Carroll overhead, yes the Sébastien Haller swansong, also overhead, but a few home defeats at London Stadium too when they stick their rock.
So that is my safety perspective as I watch Palace take the field in yellow. Yellow for coward, or banana skin? And Patrick Viera as manager. Remember Razor Ruddock goading him to spit at him at Upton Park leading to Viera being sent off. Course you do. A West Ham win with Di Canio goals. So you now have the right lens in the viewing glasses.
In the first half it all looks like unnecessary freudian naval-gazing as Hammers continue their expert passing and match domination from the Leicester fixture on Monday. And soon the goal comes, the move ignited by a power run from Antonio and ending with an ‘after you, no after you,’ interchange with Fornals, culminating in the Spaniard stroking the ball home. We are oh so top of the league we are. This is what it must feel like being Manchester City, but without the wages bill. In the build up it is noticeably that Souček wisely resists a challenge that would have required a high-footed lunge, and his change of mind creates an unforced error from Kouyate who gives the ball away to Coufal, starting the move with a quick series of passes, the last of which ends with the ball in the back of the net. Czech that. Half-time is spent supping at a great cup of tea and orange chocolate cookie, feeling like a football supremo.
The second half suggests that Viera may have spent the interval threatening to spit in his players’ lunches for the rest of the season if they don’t get their collective fingers out. Because, by heck, they are all uniformly yanked out of the changing room with a succession of almost audible plops.
First significantly to the ball is Palace’s Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher, quiet in the first half, but on the hour stroking the ball past Fabianski after some pitchfork lackadaishian in the Hammers defence, Palace’s first effort on goal. Ten minutes later and the man of the moment Antonio collects an excellent pass from Cresswell, ghosts past McArthur and hammers, really hammers the ball home beyond Guaita.
But Palace are not finished. Their second effort on goal, a minute later, is created by McArthur who atones for his previous lapse by finding Gallagher in the box, and the Chelski’s sublime turn flat foots the West Ham defence and the yard he creates for himself allows him the chance to fire home smartly for a second equaliser. Yes, that stick of rock analogy.
Palace have a late free kick which Guéhi heads over from the edge of the six yard box, and in the final seconds Antonio beaks free with Benrahma, but the maestro’s pass is fractionally out of the attacking midfielder’s reach and Guaita grabs the loose ball gratefully. The Eagles have landed a point.
Chelsea and Liverpool draw later in the day, so Hammers finish the Saturday still top of the Premier League. Say we are top of the league. Say we are top of the league.
Go on, say it.
1 Lucasz Fabianski, 15 Craig Dawson, 3 Aaron Cresswell, 5 Vladimir Coufal, 21 Angelo Ogbonna, 41 Declan Rice (Captain), 28 Tomas Souček, 20 Jarrod Bowen, 8 Pablo Fornals, 22 Said Benrahma, 9 Michail Antonio
Substitutes: 10 Manuel Lanzini, 7 Andriy Yarmolenko
Scorers: Pablo Fornals, Michail Antonio
