In some fashion, we have our first win of the season.
With no wins in eight games and just three points on the board – and with Spurs coming off the back of a 4-1 dismantling of West Ham – yesterday’s game was looking bleak.
To see us grind out a brilliant home victory against a team of Spurs’ quality is extremely pleasing.
But there is predominantly the feeling that now we can kick on with the season. We can draw a line under what has been a very below average start to the season and start to look at climbing the table.
I personally have felt this season that we haven’t been that far off the pace, and player errors and odd substitutions had hindered us, as opposed to poor tactics.
Of course, we were clearly missing Michael Olise in the front line, but you felt that we were close to clicking into gear. Glasner had commented in the week that a lot of our squad had long summers, with many playing in tournaments.
He also fairly made the point that with four signings made on deadline day, that is then four players that have not had a pre-season with the club, and the league is already underway. You could see this on the pitch so far this season.
Even though you could see we had the foundations there, we could never really play more than one half of good football, leading to dropped points and poor performances.
Yesterday, however, was by far our best, most complete performance so far this season. To be rewarded with three points makes it even sweeter.
Simply, we wanted it more than Spurs on the day. We were hard in the challenge, high pressing, and looked to threaten going forward for the whole game.
There were standout performances from Adam Wharton, Will Hughes, Ismaïla Sarr, and last but certainly not least, Maxence Lacroix.
The French defender’s quality has shone through more and more with every game this season, with the 24-year-old putting in a man of the match performance yesterday.
This clip of him at the end of the game in front of the Holmesdale is just fantastic as well.
At the other end of the pitch, Jean-Phillipe Mateta returned to the starting line-up, and returned to scoresheet also.
With Ebere Eze a constant threat, it was encouraging to see the squad doggedly chasing more goals, even if we couldn’t convert.
We have a busy week ahead, with two trips to Birmingham 3 days apart, facing Villa in the league cup RO16, and Wolves on Sunday.
But, if we go to Villa and come away with a win, that’s two wins out of two, and we’re in the quarter finals of the cup, which suddenly puts a whole different spin on the season.
Granted, Villa are very tough opponents currently, and with it being an away fixture the odds are more in their favour; however, it wouldn’t surprise me to see us turn up there and get a result.
It will be interesting to see where we are at come the end of this week – you never quite know with Palace!
Onto Villa 🦅
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