Swansea City piled on the misery for Crystal Palace as they won 2-0 at Selhurst Park. Palace approached the game as favourites, looking to end their poor start to the season. With Swansea losing Gylfi Sigurdsson to Everton and having their own poor start, both sides had a big opportunity to claim their first win of the season. Only one side looked like taking it.
Crystal Palace vs Swansea: Match Review
The Eagles started off slowly, with no sign of changing their tactics from their previous games. They opened the game with three centre-backs in James Tomkins, Scott Dann and Timothy Fosu-Mensah. From the start, Swansea looked dangerous with a lot of energy in their attack. James McArthur instantly showed signs that he was still unfit. In the eighteenth minute, however, he came close to opening the scoring after heading a Joel Ward cross just wide.
The inevitable happened just before half-time as Swansea went ahead. Tammy Abraham got in front of Martin Kelly—who came on for the injured James Tomkins—to beat Wayne Hennessey from close range. Both teams went into the tunnel at half-time with little to reflect on as not much action occurred during the first 45 minutes.
It looked as though Frank De Boer had finally changed his team’s tactics as Palace switched to a four-at-the-back formation. Patrick Van Aanholt made way for Lee Chung-Yong with not many other options on the bench. At this point, it was clear how much Wilfried Zaha has been missed. After just missing a header from close range, Martin Kelly was caught out by Kyle Naughton, who provided Jordan Ayew with an easy finish as he rounded Hennessey and slotted the ball into an empty net.
Palace had the majority of chances after the Swans doubled their lead, but nothing could really trouble Lukasz Fabianski. De Boer received something of a frustrated reaction when he walked off the pitch, with fans wondering when the misery will end.
If Palace are to stay up this year then they need to improve, whether that means adapting to De Boer’s tactics or the manager himself changing them. After the international break, they will travel to Burnley still in search for their first points of the season. Swansea, meanwhile, will face Newcastle at home. Having just registered their first win of this campaign, perhaps the two weeks’ break before their next match has come at the wrong time for them.
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