Palace’s run of form against Aston Villa was always going to end at some point, perhaps highlighting this jinxed it ahead of the meeting at Selhurst Park on Tuesday night as Villa went home with the points.
Villa had been on a nine-game winless run but a first half strike was enough to hand then the three-points in a 1-0 win.
We were left to rue the missed chances we couldn’t take and the dominance we had, but we also found Villa ‘keeper Brad Guzan in top form with him making some very good, and important saves, to deny us as he kept out a deflected effort from his own defender Aly Cissokho and Mile Jedinak, among others.
The ball did end up in the back of the Villa net early on as Guzan did make a mess of a Yannick Bolasie cross but as Dwight Gayle had moved into an offside position when Scott Dann smashed the ball home it didn’t count.
Having been denied by Julian Speroni, and a save from his curling effort, Christian Benteke (32) then scored his first goal in nine-months since injury and then a suspension. Dann lost possession to Benteke, poorly, with the Villa man powering forward to score.
Bolasie, Marouane Chamakh and Wilfried Zaha all missed or had efforts saved in the second half with other efforts blocked out by a stubborn Villa defender. A penalty appeal was turned away and in the last minute when Zaha produced some magic to beat several players when a quality cross wasn’t converted in the last minute we knew it wasn’t going to be our night as we slipped to a one-nil defeat.
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