A game of two halves and substitutes making a difference.

The Blues get their first league win since August 30th and end Palace’s great run

I write this the day after the great win at Hill Dickinson stadium over the very in-form Crystal Palace, they were on an 18/19 game run unbeaten, we were the last team to beat them at Selhurst Park and I think, they were the only team we did the Premier League double over last season.

They were on a high, other than that remarkable run they have been on, in the last league game they played they beat the current champions, Liverpool, with a goal very late on.

We knew we would have Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall out as he had reached 5 bookings, the last two being absolutely ridiculous of course but anyway, so the talk was who would come in for him. I thought pre-game the option would be Tyler Dibling getting his first PL start and that would probably be on the right so that would mean another player would need to take Dewsbury-Hall’s spot as the number 10, for me, I thought it would be either Ndiaye or Grealish, as it turned out, it was Ndiaye. The team pretty much picks itself after that and it was as most of us, no doubt, thought. Pickford, O’Brien, Tarkowski, Keane, Mykolenko, Garner, Gana Gueye, Dibling, Ndiaye, Grealish and Barry. Personally, I couldn’t pick between Barry & Beto, neither have really done it so far this season, Beto has got one goal though. Barry is only young, adapting to a new league, he has got a lot of stick by some of the fan base, and it seemed he hadn’t taken it too well as he reportedly removed anything Everton related from his instagram account, I think he may have posted an Everton image/message on their since.

Overall Palace had the better first half, I was fearing the overall result when it went 1-0, I even posted on X, ‘Palace are doing well this season, so this is not based on today but what I’ve seen from us lately does give me cause for concern, I have to admit’. We got to half-time, Moyes made two changes, Beto for Barry and Alcaraz for Dibling. Alcaraz went in as the 10 which saw Ndiaye go back to his more familiar position on the right-wing. Both substitutes made a difference to the game, they may not have scored but overall, their input to the team was noticeable, there was talk after the game from fans wondering is there a way we can get Alcaraz and Dewsbury-Hall in the team together? More on that later.

We kept on going, we looked a lot better than we did in the first half, we had to make another substitution when Keane got injured. Tim Iroegbunham came on, Garner went to right-back and O’Brien went into the centre of defence. I failed to mention, it wasn’t just our substitutions I feel changed the game, Palace, at 1-0 on the 70th minute took off their centre forward Jean-Phillippe Mateta and replaced him with their hero from last week, Eddie Nketiah and although he got that winner against Liverpool I saw Mateta going off as a bonus.

On around the 75^th minute, Iroegbunham broke into the Palace penalty area on the blindside of defender Maxence Lacroix and was brought down to earn us a penalty which was dispatched by Ndiaye to make it 1-1. We didn’t rest on our laurels, we continued on and went for the win.

As there was a lengthy stoppage, 8 minutes was added on and at 93 Ndiaye put in a delightful cross that was met by Beto in the air but he headed it straight at Dean Henderson in goal, anywhere else then it was 2-1 but as it bounced off him, the man who had put them 1 up, Daniel Munoz tried to clear it and it ricocheted off Jack Grealish and flew into the net to give us a 2-1 lead. Hill Dickinson erupted, we need a win after not winning any of the previous 4 games in all comps and it was even better as Palace had been on such a good run.

International break now and then we’re back with Man City away and Spurs at home.

Thanks for reading guys, please share, it would be appreciated, all the best, Stu - UTFT