Crystal Palace deserve top billing for once after ‘bloodied noses’

We usually hide the Crystal Palace fan at the bottom of the Mailbox but the Eagles deserve top billing.

We also have some mails on Arsenal and of course Manchester United.

Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com; maybe watch some Monday Night Football first.

For once, Crystal Palace should get top billing

Saturday was one of those days you live for as a supporter of a club like Crystal Palace. We can’t really claim to be a small club anymore but we’re certainly a lot smaller in stature and financial clout than those clubs above us in the pyramid. Beating teams like Liverpool doesn’t happen very often, so we’ll always be underdogs against them.

* I’m convinced there is nothing in all of football Match of the Day and/or its commentators love more than drumming up controversy when a goal is scored from a corner and replays show it should have been a goal kick. It’s part of a mutual appreciation society with managers who love a good moan about this after the game.

In an ideal world the on-field officials would get that right, or VAR would be able to overturn it, but this isn’t the ideal world, it’s the real world. The real, deeply flawed, mainly broken world. The consolation at being on the wrong end of an erroneously awarded corner is that you can set up your team to defend a corner, in a way you cannot in open play. And yet, whenever it happens, a goal often follows. That was the case at Selhurst Park on Saturday.

Looking at a replay, immediately before the corner is taken, there are four Liverpool players stationed on the front post, all closer to the ball than the two Palace players, taking “he’s got to clear the first man” to unnecessary extremes. Daichi Kamada succeeded with that and his corner to the back post took all four of them, including both centre-backs, out of the play completely. The defender at the far post could only nod the ball back into the mix where Ismaila Sarr reacted quickest to prod home.

* Having had a bee in their bonnet about that officiating decision, it was strange that there was no mention whatsoever of the handball in the buildup to Federico Chiesa’s equaliser. Mo Salah’s hand deflected the ball in a way that prevented Chris Richards heading it cleanly and he glanced it into the path of Chiesa, whose scuffed finish went in.

* There’s been a trend recently for former football managers using interviews and podcast appearances to bemoan the evolution of language in football. Surprisingly commonly, the latest bugbear appears to be people saying “pressing” where they had always said “win the ball back as quickly as possible”. Could they be struggling to find work as managers because they fail to see that “press” is simply easier to shout from the technical area than plenty of alternatives?

That came to mind on Saturday afternoon because whatever the modern parlance for it is, it seems like the old school term for how Palace generally defended was “stand in the way so Liverpool players can’t pass it to each other”. This is one of the most crucial parts of a low block – sorry, “men behind the ball”, and led to at least a couple of chances for Palace in the first half. It’s easy to criticise Ibrahima Konate for giving the ball away but he’s looking for someone to pass to, and his teammates didn’t do enough to make themselves available – arguably the very basis of the pass and move style Liverpool have supposedly always played.

* Unusually for Liverpool, and despite being buoyed by their equaliser, they looked tired at the end of the game. They struggled to get back in numbers to defend a late Palace attack and when that eventually broke down, Milos Kerkez simply put the ball out of play however he could instead of looking to launch a counterattack the other way. That presented Jefferson Lerma with the opportunity to put a long throw into the mixer. It wasn’t dealt with by Liverpool so Will Hughes put it back into the scrum where Marc Guehi flicked it on to an unmarked Eddie Nketiah, who volleyed home after giving Jeremie Frimpong the slip.

Nketiah didn’t really score enough goals last season to justify his transfer fee, but he won plaudits from fans, teammates and manager for the effort he put into each appearance. He started this season with an injury, but impressed in the last game against West Ham and got his deserved reward here.

* One of my guilty pleasures while football is going on is following games on Twitter via retweets from the Athletic. The difference between the way their club-specific correspondents report goals the team they cover/support score versus the ones they concede is always unintentionally funny. That was taken to another level on Saturday by Gregg Evans, for whom the key detail of the opening Palace goal was that Marc Guehi supposedly didn’t celebrate against a team he might have joined in the recent transfer window, like he was Wes Hoolahan. Weirdly Evans had nothing to say about the Palace captain’s reaction to the winner.

* Next up for Oliver Glasner’s side is their first ever European group or league stage fixture, and then a trip to Goodison Park next Sunday. The unbeaten run will end eventually, or get mired in a ton of draws, but for now, it’s incredibly fun to be a Palace fan (not just because I married into a family of Liverpool fans).
Ed Quoththeraven

We like to see bloodied noses

Don’t know about you, but when the league table, even this early on, looks nearly set into the top wage bills, it can be a bit depressing.
So to see Leeds in eleventh and around half of the top ten currently unheralded clubs makes for a contented smile.
Peter, Andalucia

Sensible views on Arsenal and those decisions

Tickner analysing Arsenal is so funny. The Spurs in him comes out in every word, and even in victory you can feel the disdain in what he has to produce for the site. And fair enough, he’s a fan who hates us. I’d be the same.

The fact is, Gyokeres is fouled. It’s ok to say it. Pope getting a touch is more luck than judgement and if we got away with that I’d be counted all of my blessings. Pope’s reaction is a tell, the Liverpool fan reffing it and giving it is a tell. It’s a foul and if it’s not overturned, nobody moans. Maybe the worst part about it was if it wasn’t a foul (it was a foul) is that the ball was going to Saka, wide of the goal but with Pope out of position. And the goalie got a drop ball to restart!

Gabriel was laughable on the goal, no denying. If you’re an Arsenal fan claiming that, I have some magic beans to sell you. I also think he was lucky with the handball that Twitter seems to be apoplectic over. Now it wasn’t given because he touched the ball first… how ironic. The everything app has a problem with that one because it’s handball (and it is handball) but they’re justifying the Pope foul by the same marker. They both should’ve been penalties in my opinion, regardless of any prior touch or club alliance.

So you get some and you don’t get others but thankfully Tickner does acknowledge how we played yesterday. There’s so much results based analysis now that it would be interesting to see what people would’ve said about our display had Gabriel not nicked it.

This was by far our best away performance of the season so far, with Pope outstanding a couple of times he was called on. Much to be encouraged by from Eze, Gyokeres (who battled hard against a tough defensive lineup) and I thought even Trossard was pretty good, despite the clamour for him to be nowhere near the team. Zubimendi was excellent.

Need to get the next very strange monkey of West Ham at home off our backs and go from there. Whatever about our tough start – Toon A, West Ham H, Fulham A, Palace H yielded two points last season. We already have three this time around. Every game is a big one.
Joe, AFC, East Sussex

READ: Two key reasons Arsenal are now worthy Premier League favourites

Penny for Stewie’s thoughts

I’m sure he had another essay of tripe ready to go after 80 minutes…no doubt he is crying into his cornflakes this morning and won’t send an email praising Arteta and the team (it’s almost like he is troll, surely not!)

Chris NUFC – I can taste the salt from your email pal. Criticising us for using set pieces when your lot plays Wimbledon 90s style ‘football’ is hypocritical in the extreme. Likewise the jab on spending, the only reason your owners aren’t throwing money is PSR.

Great win and performance, and Arteta going for it this time. We have come through a tough opening 6 games only 2 games behind Liverpool, take that all day.
Tom (AFC London)

Ps – Liverpool fans – I did say it wasn’t sustainable.

A rare response to the BTL folk

I don’t usually respond to the raging lunatics in the comments section, but how is the ownership of Newcastle relevant in any way to the fact that this Arsenal team are basically a gold plated Stoke City?
Chris, NUFC

Amorim must be put out of his misery

I commented below the line yesterday that Amorim has chosen to die on the hill of his formation as giving an inch of ground on it now would erode whatever defence of his stubborn attitude the fans might still hold, having said the Pope couldn’t make him change it.

It feels to me that the only thing keeping him in the job is that Ratcliffe is in the same sinking boat. Amorim is to Ratcliffe what 3-4-3 is to Amorim. Having scored enough PR own goals in his time in charge to make Richard Dunne wince, Ratcliffe has spent a fortune getting a top sporting director in, then sacking him off because he felt he knew best, pursuing Amorim for another small fortune then going all out on the required new players to fit the system. He is now in denial about what will be known as his biggest own goal of all. It really is quite something looking in from outside and wondering who will crack first.

Interestingly Badwolf defended Amorim’s formation stubbornness, choosing instead to blame other aspects of his tactical management. I don’t disagree that there is a lot he is not getting right – poor choices of players, not pressing etc., but most of his problems revolve around the formation issue.

* He isn’t just refusing to change his starting formation, but refusing to give other formations a go when a match has gotten away from him. A good manager can see that there are times to change formation, just like there is a time to make a sub. You wouldn’t defend him keeping an injured player on the pitch because he felt it would undermine his starting 11 choice.

* This formation rigidity has him scrabbling around trying to fix the game in virtually every other way to the point of confusing his players. They are being shuffled across the front and back line like three cups hiding a ball. He is playing players in ridiculous positions like Mason Mount at left back. Yes Badwolf, he is choosing players poorly, because he is experimenting wildly in compensation for his unwillingness to change something else more obvious.

* People criticised Pep for needing specialist players, like Ederson, and Rodri to make his philosophy work and we all remember how rough his introduction to the premier league was. But with Pep and other successful managers in the league who tried something different, you could see the fruit of their philosophies even early on and the question was if they could overcome the drawbacks enough for it to be worth sticking with. This is not true for Amorim’s formation. There have been no green shoots. New players have made zero difference. Therefore…

* …we come to the kicker. Either the formation is a dud or Amorim is simply incapable of using it well. Badwolf suggests it is the latter, and isn’t that far worse? If his pressing shape/player selection is all wrong, this suggests he doesn’t know what he is doing with a 3-4-3. To make the formation work you need to have the ability to implement the tactical coaching that complements it. If you can’t, then what business do you have insisting on it being your only approach? This isn’t coaching school anymore. “TIMUFCWTA” as Gary Neville would say. More than ever United is no place for a confused young manager.

I don’t fully blame Amorim for this. We know how it goes. We’ve seen young managers being caught in a perfect storm, doing very well at a middling club, perhaps in a weaker league, or a slower league. Perhaps with some great young players they are fortunate enough to hit upon. It comes together for them almost too easily…and then the call comes from the big club, it’s “now or never” (no more literally than in Amorim’s case). They can’t say no, and then they are thrust into one of the most cut-throat leagues in the world, and they are easy meat, with that rabbit in the headlights look, but they can’t quit possibly their one chance at a big club. United have to put him out of his misery and let him find somewhere much quieter to grow as a manager.
Nick