da leao： Crystal Palace finally got back to winning ways this afternoon as they beat Southampton 3-0 at Selhurst Park thanks to goals from Christian Benteke and James Tomkins to ease the pressure on Alan Pardew.
da pinup bet： Going into this game many felt that it could be ‘Pards” last stand with the Eagles on a dire run of six losses on the bounce in the league, but once they scored their opener, they never looked back.
Christian Benteke’s opener had more than a touch of fortune about it as Fraser Forster took a swipe at the ball and completely missed it allowing for the simplest of finishes.
On such things momentum can turn, and that was the case in south London as minutes later James Tomkins was wheeling away after scoring Palace’s second before Benteke hit the third in the second-half.
Southampton, in truth, never got going after their EFL Cup exploits in the week and 3-0 was how it finished leaving the men in blue and red to savour a victory at last.
It was respite for Pardew, then, and here are THREE things we learned from it…
Patience is a virtue
To Crystal Palace’s credit, many other clubs would have got rid of Alan Pardew by now, but they’ve stuck by their man and now the hope will be that from this result they can go on a good run. The Eagles seem to go on long runs of either wins or losses and now the plan has to be to embark on a winning streak with the idea that, once a loss does come along, they make sure they bounce back. Pardew isn’t out of the woods yet but he might be seeing a clearance.
The Eagles seem to go on long runs of either wins or losses and now the plan has to be to embark on a winning streak with the idea that, once a loss does come along, they make sure they bounce back. Pardew isn’t out of the woods yet, but he might be seeing a clearance.
Turning point for Benteke
Speaking of going on runs, here is a man that might just hit the goal trail.
Benteke is the ultimate confidence-based forward in the sense that when he’s feeling good he’s unplayable and when he isn’t he may as well be on the bench. Sometimes strikers like that need a slice of luck to get going and the Belgian got a wedge of good fortune as Fraser Forster allowed him the easiest of finishes before he grabbed a second.
Now it’s time he kicks on.
Southampton need consistency
The Saints won’t be going down despite losing to Palace, but they may find it hard to reach the European places with losses like this.
Beating Everton and holding Liverpool is all well and good, but only if you follow it up with results in these games. To be fair to the squad, they were in action during the week and can use that as an excuse but if they want to reach that next level, being consistent no matter what the circumstances are is something they need to be.