Its a common tactic, draw the opposition out onto you and hit them on the counter. The idea is you don't harry to far up the pitch with midfield, and consequently you restrict space between midfield and defence.

In order to break you down, their midfield and full backs have to push up, leaving space that you can then counter attack into, quickly from a turn over of possession. Key to this is not losing possession in dangerous places.

As more than half of goals in football are scored within one minute of a change of possession. Palace as a team cannot compete in possession football with a lot of the teams (we tried under Holloway).

The idea is that you reduce the risk of conceeding whilst retaining as much attacking potential. Statistically the second goal in football is the most important one. The idea is to snatch a goal if you can, but most importantly not conceed - To make you opponant take more risks, create more space and risk loss of possession in dangerous spaces.

Tactically its astute, very similar to how stoke and wigan survived so long in the premiership. Minimise risk and ma

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The tactics of counter-attack are well known and simple. But more goals are scored playing it straight. The point is, when Palace decided to attack in the more usual pressure manner they scored and could have won. The counter-attack policy is ok but not necessary. What Palace need to do is not concede, then the tactic works. It cannot work with a dodgy defence.