Palace still have bit of work to do but, without wishing to tempt fate, the win at Stoke should have done enough to all but see us ‘safe’ for another season – not that we’ve got the look about a side that is just playing well enough to be safe….
The points tally that we have at this stage is as good as it has been since the early days of the Premier League, you know the days when ‘football began’ as there wasn’t football in England before that was there!
A couple of goals late in the first half, including the ultimately decisive injury-time winner, saw us come from a goal down to win two-one at the Britannia Stadium to move us 11-points clear of the relegation zone, with us in a position now – and with us playing the way – of a side that should have done enough.
Stoke had taken an early lead when Diouf (14) was in the right place to turn home after a deflected Adam freekick came to him.
With half time approaching, and up until that point we hadn’t offered too much, Stoke ‘keeper Begovic ‘brought down’ Bolasie, who was being held by Stoke captain Shawcross anyway, to give us a penalty. A soft one perhaps! Murray (41), who might have found his chance in the side initially due to injuries for others – which some are still recovering from – but he’s taken it, made no mistake to make it one-one.
Murray on win: Click Here.
A simple long punt from Speroni was flicked on by Murray to give Zaha (45+2) the chance in first half injury-time, which he took to score his second in as many games make it two-one at the break with that proving to be the winner.
The win would have been confirmed in the second half had a Dann volley not came back off the post but we did have Speroni to thank for keeping our lead intact as he saved well from Ireland and from close range from N’Zonzi.
When Stoke were denied, what they thought, was a penalty of their own – perhaps Ward got lucky to be fair, that was that with us now on he cusp of the points tally that Pardew felt would be enough to keep us up!
Alan Pardew post-match: Click Here.
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