December 10 2017

Christian Benteke

Crystal Palace extended their unbeaten run to five games with a frustrating 2-2 draw at home to Bournemouth. Mike Scott looks at how the players performed…

The headlines will all be about Christian Benteke’s penalty miss, having wrestled the ball from Luka Milivojevic and ignored the advice of the manager, his teammates and most of the crowd. But the game had a lot more drama going on that that, with Palace creating a plethora of chances to win it.

Julian Speroni - 6

No one will be angrier that Jermain Defoe scored a brace than Speroni, who could do nothing about the first of the veteran’s pair, watching as Palace were beaten by a textbook training ground move of a short corner. The second goal was a sublime lob over the Argentinian, who was caught a couple of yards off his line and punished. Afterwards, Speroni made a couple of important stops, including getting in front of a shot that would have seen Defoe score a thoroughly undeserved hattrick. Other than that, Speroni had a solid enough game, keeping cool even though the defence produced its shakiest performance in a while.

Timothy Fosu-Mensah - 6

The Dutchman, seen on Twitter last week hinting at his unhappiness at being left out against West Brom, came in to replace an injured Joel Ward. He did well enough, although the team missed the assurance of Ward from the last three or four matches, particularly for the first 20 minutes or so. In the second half, Bournemouth’s threats were few and far between, with breaks generally coming down Schlupp’s flank, so Fosu-Mensah had a very quiet time of it.

James Tomkins - 6

Tomkins returned following one game out, but his afternoon was less self-assured than his last couple of appearances. He and Sakho looked uncharacteristically shaky, allowing Bournemouth to dominate the first quarter of an hour and offering them more space than Palace have been giving opponents recently. But his afternoon did settle after Dann’s introduction and Tomkins made some excellent final man tackles, including one on Jermain Defoe. He couldn’t help himself but give Benteke a piece of his mind on the pitch following the Belgian’s penalty fiasco; the passion and anger was there for everyone at the ground to see.

Mamadou Sakho - 5

One of the most worrying things about the game was the sight of Sakho limping off after 24 minutes. Rumours of the Frenchman being seen on crutches will worry all Palace fans. The time he was on the pitch was hardly vintage Sakho; he was injured during a totally self-inflicted sketchy moment when he got the ball stuck under his feet and nearly let Bournemouth in on Speroni. Before that, he and Tomkins looked nervous and the Hodgson ‘two banks of four’ mantra seemed to have been forgotten, with the visitors running through at will. Scott Dann (6) replaced him following the injury and managed to score a goal for the fourth successive game against the Cherries. At the back, he had an easier time of it, with Bournemouth slowly becoming less and less of a threat. Missed an absolute sitter from a couple of yards, ballooning the ball so far over the bar that he would be lucky to reproduce it on demand.

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Jeffrey Schlupp - 5

The familiar criticism of Schlupp will be levelled against him again after a game where, too often, balls over the top landed in space behind him. With the visitors breaking at a quicker pace than teams Palace have faced in previous weeks, Schlupp struggled to keep his position and, too often, Loftus-Cheek was left to mop up. In the second half, he played a key role in heaping on pressure and was an excellent outlet for build up play, although was guilty of some sloppy passing.

Luka Milivojevic - 7

Other than a few badly placed passes, Milivojevic put in the kind of shift required against a fast breaking team like Bournemouth. As well as cooly slotting away the penalty that levelled the game at 1-1, he and Cabaye put in a real defensive shift to sure up a perplexed backline. In the first half, he took a yellow card for the team to stop a menacing looking break. Was pushed aside by Benteke when Palace were awarded their second penalty; if Sakho is injured, you would assume he’ll be taking captain duties over, so we probably won’t see that happen again.

Yohan Cabaye - 7

Like Milivojevic, Cabaye was on double-shifts early on, helping tighten up a leaky looking defence, but he dominated central midfield for a period too, spraying out some lovely balls to Zaha and Loftus-Cheek. A worrying looking thigh strain stopped his afternoon prematurely and he was replaced by James McArthur (7), who put in a full game’s shift in half an hour, making some key tackles as well as stretching a tiring Cherries defence.

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Ruben Loftus-Cheek - 6

The debate on positioning for Loftus-Cheek and Zaha will continue after an up and down game for the England international. Too quiet for long periods, he only really started to wear down the Bournemouth defence in the second half, when his link ups with Zaha down the left looked promising on numerous occasions. Sadly, the end product rarely matched the build up play. What was good to see was that he was there to back up when Schlupp was caught out on the left of defence; his England critics say that is the part of his game that he’s lacking. On the evidence of this game, that’s not true.

Andros Townsend - 6

As ever, no lack of effort from Townsend, who spent much of the first quarter of the game helping out his defence. Little opportunity came for Townsend to make his trademark runs, with the ex-Newcastle man playing behind Zaha and Benteke and feeding the ball to feet to them. It could be that Hodgson will have to tinker with the system; it’s worrying that Townsend is not getting the opportunity to run to the bye line at the moment.

Wilfried Zaha - 7

The last 20 minutes of the game were the Wilfried Zaha show. How Palace failed to capitalise on their total dominance is anyone’s guess, because Zaha was up against the last man on the edge of the visitors’ box at least half a dozen times. A deflected shot, crosses slightly too deep, lack of support, missed chances and a criminal miss from Scott Dann all played their part in Zaha’s good work going unrewarded.

In the first half, Zaha had some very quiet periods, still looking a little like he is stifled by the formation Hodgson has cultivated to incorporate Benteke, but he did make a few excellent runs down the left and inside the fullback, one of which ended with Asmir Begovic bringing him down in the box. Palace did look very reliant on Zaha for much of the game, but he wore the weight of expectation well. His only real bad moment was losing his temper after being brought down as he broke past the Bournemouth defence; a needless booking came from Zaha shouting and complaining at the referee.

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Christian Benteke - 5

Up until injury time, this was arguably the Belgian’s best game since his return from injury. He saw a diamond opportunity saved by Asmir Begovic after he hit the shot too close to the keeper from 10 yards out, which was possibly his best chance to score (aside from the penalty miss). He won most of the headers he went up for, although too often there was no one near enough to take advantage. He set up Zaha for the move that resulted in Palace’s first penalty.

Having said all of that, the injury time penalty drama is inexcusable; Hodgson has said Benteke had no right to demand to take the kick and that no one could get the ball out of his hands. Boos rang out around the Holmesdale as he left the field; it could just be that this game ends up being a defining moment in Benteke’s career; his relationship with the fans has taken a big knock, possibly too big a knock to recover from.