It was the proverbial game of two halves at Selhurst Park, with Leeds well on top for the first half hour, but Crystal Palace coming from behind to win the game.

There was one enforced change for Jesse Marsch to make with Sinisterra serving a one match ban, but otherwise the starting personnel were as per the last home game against Aston Villa. Some pundits thought he might make a like-for-like change and start with Summerville, but instead Bamford got the nod, which meant a bit of a reshuffle into different positions.

Rodrigo dropped into a slightly deeper ‘number 10’ position, which in theory should suit his game a bit better, with Aaronson moving over to the right. Despite the reshuffle Leeds immediately clicked into gear as soon as the game began. Our intensity meant that Palace struggled to get out of their own penalty area, and they had one dodgy moment as Guaita miskicked an overhit backpass, but Leeds couldn’t take advantage.

Yet in the tenth minute Leeds were in front. Aaronson somehow kept possession as he weaved through the heart of the Palace defence, and when his shot crashed off the post it fell invitingly for Struijk, who sent a powerful shot through a defender’s legs for his first goal of the season. Who’d have thought our central defender had it in him to do that!

We continued to dominate for most of the first half, with the home crowd getting increasingly frustrated, and should have gone further in front when an excellent through from Aaronson ball set Bamford through on goal. But he casually flicked his left foot at the ball, whether through a lack of sharpness or not wanting to shoot with his weaker right, and Guaita was able to make the save.

If that had gone in Palace might have been killed off, but they took advantage of the reprieve with an equaliser a few minutes later, completely against the run of play. A free kick was given for the second of two fouls, and as Olise sent an excellent ball into the area, Edouard rose to guide it down and into the corner of the net.

There was a brief moment of hope as VAR checked for a possible offside, but eventually decided that he had been millimetres behind the defensive line as the ball was delivered, and the goal stood. So the much-vaunted Palace Ultras finally woke up and made a bit of noise, but Leeds continued to have more of the possession until the break.

Palace were slightly fortunate to finish the first half with eleven men after Guehi caught Adam’s heel with a very late challenge, but the referee decided that a yellow was sufficient. And Doucoure got away with a final warning rather than a second yellow, after catching Rodrigo, which was rather galling after what happened to us last week. He would later be substituted to remove the danger of him being sent off.

We had one more promising break that was rudely interrupted as Bamford was hauled down by Olise, but I thought he should have played it to one of the players free to his left before Olise made contact. So we went in level at half time, when we obviously thought we should have been in front. But the second half would be very different, as Palace abandoned their attempts to dribble through us at every opportunity, and adopted a more direct approach.

Early in the half some excellent work from Eze on their right created an excellent chance for Ayew, only for Kristensen to race back for an excellent block. The ball could have spun anywhere from his intervention, but thankfully it looped up and over the bar. This was a sign of things to come, with Meslier having to make saves to deny first Andersen and then Olise.

With Bamford starting to run out of puff Marsch replaced him with Summerville, but as the balance of the game had shifted the young Dutchman found it hard to make an impact. Palace continued to dominate, so to stiffen the midfield Marsch took off the tiring Aaronson and sent Klich into the fray. But that was to no avail, as Palace finally got the breakthrough in the 76th minute.

After a series of passes worked the ball to the edge of the box, Eze took it past Cooper and placed his shot out of Meslier’s reach into the corner of the net. Our final changes came with six minutes remaining, as Gelhardt came on for Roca in search of the goal we desperately needed, while Ayling replaced Kristensen to give us a bit more of an attacking option down the right.

But all Gelhardt managed to do was give away a couple of free kicks in dangerous positions, as the Palace players went down a little easily after slight nudges in the back. The first one nearly took Rodrigo’s head off as he bravely jumped to meet it, which was the first thing he’d done for a while after I’d almost forgotten he was playing.

We put Palace under a bit of pressure as time ran out, but despite the continued encouragement of our section of the crowd and being given five minutes of injury time, we never looked like converting it into a late equaliser. And so we went down to a very frustrating defeat. A draw would have been a fairer result over the full ninety minutes, but we needed Bamford to take that chance in the first half in order to get it.

Jesse Marsch told LUTV that our second-half performance wasn’t that bad, but that wasn’t a view shared by many on social media. Allegedly he’s out of his depth, he should have made his substitutions earlier, Gnonto should have come on, Perkins should get a chance, and the players we bought in the summer are mostly useless.

While in the TV studio Paul Merson said we should work on our game management rather than going at a hundred miles an hour all the time, and he might have a point even if some of his other comments made him sound like he was still pissed.

This result leaves us with only two points from the last five games and we are now in 14th place, three points above the dreaded third bottom but with a game in hand. We’ve got Arsenal next week, but then should pick up points from three of the next four games. And we will need to, before things get tricky either side of the world cup break.

So are we dropping into another relegation battle like some of the gloom and doom merchants believe? I think not, as there are enough poor sides below us at the moment, and our performance in the first part of today’s game gives us something to build on. But we need to find a way of keeping it going throughout ninety minutes, to make sure we don’t come away from games like this with nothing.

Reuters

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