Tottenham vs Crystal Palace a few quick thoughts
Dan Tracey
February 21, 2016
1,698 Views
- Tottenham’s hopes of a treble have come to end after defeat in this fiesty London Derby
- The main story was Emmanuel Adebayor returning to White Hart Lane but truth be told he had quite a quiet game
- Martin Kelly’s Goal on the stroke of half time proving to be the difference as Crystal Palace move into the 6th Round
- The Cup has been a brief respite for Palace after their miserable League form in 2016 and that run continued this Afternoon
- Dele Alli who stole the headlines in the two sides previous encounter at Selhurst Park could have put Spurs ahead after just a couple of minutes but his header was cleared off the line by Yohan Cabaye
- These two had a constant battle throughout the match with them picking up from where they left off last Month
- Kyle Walker nearly got his second Own Goal of the season as his header looped over Michel Vorm, thankfully Vorm was quick enough to scoop it off the line after a Quarter of an hour
- Dele Alli then thought he had put Spurs in front but his shot agonisingly rolled off not one but both posts and was then cleared from danger
- With Eric Dier slotting in at Centre Back, they lost that ability for the full backs to get further up the pitch with Nabil Bentaleb not quite offering the same protection in which Dier does.
- Again changes were made to the side by Mauricio Pochettino as he looks to rotate and refresh the lineup
- The two teams looked set to go into the break level at half time but then Spurs were hit by the sucker punch
- Good work from Wilifried Zaha in the build up found Martin Kelly unmarked and he had time and space to arrow in a shot at the near post
- Some criticism has to go to Michel Vorm for being beaten at the near post
- Spurs had chances in the Second Half as Christian Eriksen and Nacer Chadli came on but they couldn’t manage to break down the resolute Palace back line
- As the game progressed Tottenham looked tired with Harry Kane looking pretty ineffectual and you felt it was maybe going to be one of those days
- Palace had an ace up their sleeve to capatilise on Tottenham’s fatigue as Yannick Bolasie returned from injury and came on to make his first appearance since December 19th
- He was a constant threat after coming on and Palace thought they had a second when his cross was put home by Connor Wickham but Wickham went too early with his run and the Assistant Referee raised his flag for Offside.
- That wasn’t going to dampen the day for Palace as they made sure it wasn’t a hat-trick of wins for the North London side in the 3 encounters that these two teams have had this season
- In fairness although Mauricio Pochettino wouldn’t have wanted to go out of the Cup, a small part of him is quietly glad that they don’t have to deal with a Replay, one that they would have real difficulty even scheduling
- Now it’s just two fronts that they are competing in but this also means that I don’t think they can use tiredness as an excuse between now and the end of the season
- The Europa League is up next on Thursday, let’s just hope it doesn’t go from 3 competitions to 1 in the space of less than a week.
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