Player Ratings And Reviews: Palace 0-2 Leicester

[NorthPalace23]

Originally Posted by El Aguila

Think we need to get Meyer eating steaks.

What should Benteke eat?

[SOUTHGATE EAGLE]

Originally Posted by NorthPalace23

What should Benteke eat?

Defenders.

[A Wooden Fish On Wheels]

They were a bit more hungry than us, no fireworks from us

[James SG]

Originally Posted by Golf Boy

Tbf to Roy, mac and Koyote were injured. If he took off Schlupp as well Luka would have been our entire center midfield.

This makes no sense to me. Sclupp isn’t a centre midfielder yet at the end of the game we have a centre midfielder (McCarthy) playing right mid and another centre midfielder (Meyer) playing left mid. While Schlupp was still having a shocker in the centre....

I found the choice of player positions baffling from start to finish by Roy today

[Tripod 10]

Playing at home, essentially 3 defensive midfielders in the team so is basically what amounts to a 7-3 formation. Kouyate spent most of the time as a right midfielder and as much as I like him, does not know at to do when he has the ball.
Schlupp shocking and was crying out for Camarassa as a replacement.
Subs, sorry Roy, you got it wrong yet again. Chasing the game you do not bring on a shockingly out of form Benteke. Play him with Ayew for once.
Parish you are not blameless either. Disgraceful lack of investment in the playing squad.
Wilf begrudgingly needs to go but you can guarantee that we will see very little of the fee reinvested in the squad.
Watkins at Brentford and Bowen at Hull will end up with similar level teams than us and will improve them.
If we spend, it will be on overpriced journeymen. Average age was 29 today.
Lots wrong with the way the club is run and I am sorry but a new contract for Roy is not the answer.

[red&blue_moomin]

Originally Posted by NRM the 2nd

So sad but I'm the same. Mixture of a lot of things groundhog season every year in terms of the squad, the premier league is just sh*t, VAR, the atmosphere Is becoming very scripted, modern football, it's just lost so much.

We've been crap for years. Getting beat by the likes of Watford, Luton, Preston, Bristol City, Swansea, Peterborough, Doncaster, Ipswich, Cardiff on the regular.

We're in top 10 in November after having spent feck all over three transfer windows. No out and out striker bought, no quality RB replacement, no cover for Wilf or Andros and of the four strikers we have two are useless/crocked. One is out on a two year loan and the only one we have that barely resembles the description is trying his absolute best. But has his limitations and is feeding off fumes. Plus our best player and only creative outlet wants to leave.

[Eagle96]

Originally Posted by ForzaPalace

Used to hate missing Palace matches. Next game I’ll be at is Bournemouth in a month’s time and I couldn’t care less about the ones in between. No excitement anymore.

Interesting comment. Let me probe-

Did you prefer it any of the past 6 seasons in the Prem when we were in the bottom 3 (or thereabouts) this time of year? Maybe one year under Pardew we weren't.

Or let's go further back, when we were kicking it in the Championship, with the likes of Fletcher, Kennedy and Stuart Green.

Do me a favour mate. Today was bad but we're doing as well as the club's ever done in its history, that's got to count for something.

[red&blue_moomin]

Originally Posted by teesdale99

Pretty much spot on. PVA and schlupp both poor, not sure I’d have marked pva higher though. I’d give an extra point to macca, my mom. Constant running. Ward good, kouyate decent. Ayew can’t be faulted for effort. Others mediocre. All in all the type of performance to be expected from this group of players with wilf lacklustre.

The fact we didn’t bring in any creative or pacy players with awb funds is baffling and concerning. You didn’t need to be a professional scout to see what players like Bowen, Watkins, mitrovic, eze, maupay, Mooy or st maxamin could have added to our squad at ‘affordable’ fees.

Or indeed any full backs. Ward has been excellent this year and has stayed fit thank goodness.

Half the AWB money is clearly going on the academy. By the sounds of it the deals payment structure is such that we've sold that on debt to a company that has just given us £22.5M. Which is roughly the money we need for the academy. Affordable for us appears to be sub £10M or a free.

[palacejim]

Leicester are a good creative team with a solid spine and pace and skill up front. We are solid, mostly with the odd moment of great play. We weren't terrible, just lost to the better side.

Their first goal sealed it, and it was the result of two errors defending a corner. Usually you can get away with one error, but not two.

Guaita - 7 - One great save, confident, came when he needed to come. Better than Schmeichel
Ward - 8 - MOM. Defended and attacked with class
PVA - 6 - Part woeful, and part creative.
Cahill - 7 - Not his best game for us. Looked a little bit lost/confused at times.
Tomkins - 6 - A couple of great tackles, otherwise a bit lost and slow
Mcarthur - 8 - Buzzing around, such a good football brain.
Kouyate - 7 - Solid
Schlupp - 5 - Not Jeff's best game, but not deserving of the haters, as always.
Luka - 7 - Got stuck in
Wilf - 7 - Our main creative outlet. A couple of sumptuous dribbles and passes, but not consistent enough still.
Ayew - 7 - Worked

Play like that against most teams and we will come away with something.

We are looking like a solid mid/lower level team. We won't get turned over and will get the wins we need. Home form is an improvement on previous two seasons. We are moving in the right direction.

We are lucky to have Roy.

Subs... meh. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. What is the point of Max Meyer?

[AJ]

People are over reacting...we were not bad at all, but we were the 2nd best team out there today. Leicester have quality players that we just don't have.

[sydnsteve]

Originally Posted by westsussexcpfc

We were pitiful today, could have played until Christmas and not scored.

Very harsh. They were a very good team. We did ok , except that Wilf can't be bothered, and Schlupp is useless. PVA saved us several times for those having a go at him. Parish was on the radio saying Wilf was ok. Don't know what game he watches. Wilf is our best player by far , but now he is our worst. A very sad state of affairs. The club needs to sit down and sort him out. He has to go, but if he plays like this no one will bother.

Ward great, Tomkins rusty. Luka poor. rest ok. The radio said we did ok but have no goal threat. Well there's a conundrum.

[sydnsteve]

Originally Posted by Eagle96

Interesting comment. Let me probe-

Did you prefer it any of the past 6 seasons in the Prem when we were in the bottom 3 (or thereabouts) this time of year? Maybe one year under Pardew we weren't.

Or let's go further back, when we were kicking it in the Championship, with the likes of Fletcher, Kennedy and Stuart Green.

Do me a favour mate. Today was bad but we're doing as well as the club's ever done in its history, that's got to count for something.

Actually today wasn't bad. Most teams in the Prem are better than us. So far Man City and Leicester have benn a class apart, the rest on a par. RH will never be exciting but he has us organised and not boring.
Jusr remember Peter Taylor!!!

[cockneyrebel]

Originally Posted by grand aigle

Vardy is just a nasty rat faced weasel, who care what he thinks!! Mrs Vardy is a slag too

Bellend.

[Martin H]

This game seems to have been seen quite differently by many judging by online comments. My tuppence says.... I thought we started the game in positive mood with us further up the pitch and for the most part in a 433 shape with Macca covering Andros' position with Wilf on the left. They were probably prettier on the ball but no more effective in the first half. Bearing in mind their 'billing' this was a fair half with optimism for a result if we could sort out the forward play. Macca was playing half and half as forward and midfielder with Wilf and Jordan the strike force albeit laid out as a 3. But WZ and JA looked like strangers on a train platform almost embarrassed to interact. Wilf has moments this season but he still isn't 'Wilf' as we know him. At times he is making smarter decisions/passes but the by product appears to be that his 90 mins seems measured and contained somehow. Flat is a better description maybe. Difficult to explain as it can't possibly attract the big boys. The result is that he is I think more manageable for defences.

Again we looked unbelievably flaky on corners defensively (and TBH offensively). I really can't work out why we are suddenly so bad. Perhaps it's the CB pairing changing every 2 or 3 games? After HT several players seemed battered in challenges and this coincided with Leicester gradually looking stronger until they scored the first goal. This was from a corner that PVA flicked on for them (doh) over the head of the perfectly positioned Kouyate for their Turkish unpronounceable CB to score from a couple of yards. We shuffled the shape and were dominating possession but were forced into swapping Macca for McCarthy due to a bad knock in the base of his spine. Meyer came on for Kouyate to help the creativity as we chased an equaliser and Christian replaced Ayew. As things opened up they were finding space in the middle they hadn't before. The bad news is that one great dummy and some intelligent play by Gray (I think?) and Vardy suckered the defence and Vardy rarely misses from there and the game had gone.

Guaita - 7 - couple of smart saves but not a lot to do other than kick it before Vardy caught him in possession. He was also beaten for what I thought was the third but it bounced back out off the inside of the post. Good to have him back tho.

Ward - 7.5 - some of his distribution was less than perfect but he not only dominated the exciting young winger Harvey but covered his defence and midfield while still finding time to charge forward. Sometimes he gets some woeful passes in woeful situations but calmly handles it. Great job Joel if pushed to pick a MOM I would pick Joel just over Macca based on mins played.

Tomkins - 5 - not a great game from James. Looked slower than ever and I suspect not 100% still. One great tackle in Vardy, timed to perfection but unfortunately outgunned over the 90 mins by him.

Cahill - 6.5 - another that got clattered but by Kouyate solid performance although he diced with death by hesitating on the ball with Vardy in pursuit.

PVA - 6 - seems to have lost his defensive composure again and often to be found popping up in weird positions leaving gaps on the left. Got away with most but his near post flick for their first proved costly. Not even sure why he was there tbh.

Macca - 7.5 - very good performance from Macca in all thirds of the pitch. Such a good example for young players who should watch his game. Intelligent, aggressive, huge energy, creative and all of this with ongoing back problems. A real pro. Surely deserves more love than he gets online at least.

Kouyate - 6.5 - battered, probably a groin muscle problem etc. But kept going until replaced by Meyer. Looking clumsy in possession of late but compensates with his ball winning, energy and aerial ability.

Luka - 6.5 - busy and combatitive. Drained at the end. Solid.

Schlupp - 6.5 - clever backheel that set up Ayew shot and hit 2 shots on target blocked/saved. I though he had a solid game, doing a lot of work in the middle. I know he's not universally loved but hey, it's all about opinions.

Ayew - 6.5 - as usual led the line with energy and aggresssion but seemed to be looking for FKs every time which blinded ref to some legitimate ones. Drifted out of the game in second half but unsure if that was him or our midfield beginning to struggle.

Zaha - 6.5 - as said above, this is a restrained, almost flat Wilf. It's less that he is doing things badly, and more that he isn't doing exceptional things more often. It is balanced by some better decision making and passing but there is some energy missing too which makes it uncomfortable to watch somehow.

Subs. Meyer was again given a short cameo to impress but failed to make any impact again. He covered the ground off the ball but he had a great chance to break with the ball but reminded us that he has average pace at best. His first touch failed him twice and he was bounced off the ball a couple of times. I realise it's tough to impress in 15 mins but this doesn't help him at all. Disappointing.

Benteke looked keen at least and won several headers but no magic moments. McCarthy did the job and got involved. No memorable negatives or standout moments.

In truth we were turned over by a quality side that we handled pretty well for the most part. Vardy, dislikeable as he may Or may not be is a quality player at the top of his game. He was the difference. Maddison has been amazing in many games this season. I thought we handled him pretty well despite some stats stating he created oodles of chances. I can only think they were counting his corners? He is very good but the hype is in overdrive lately as media seek to get him into England side where they will no doubt rip him apart

No need for panic. Bring on Chelsea.

[Martin H]

I know it's long but can't be a***d to edit it down so.... sorry.

[Alfie's army]

I was disappointed Wilf had to drop so deep to get the ball, that’s not where we need him, 1st half I thought we matched them, but the striker issue will haunt us till we get it sorted , have to agree on Vardy he’s a twat.

[palacemetros]

They sold Harry Maguire. It was always going to be a struggle for us after that. Still, the good news is that we can get regular points off the wankers now.

[dave_who_ru]

Originally Posted by AJ

People are over reacting...we were not bad at all, but we were the 2nd best team out there today. Leicester have quality players that we just don't have.

At half-time I thought either team could go on and win it.

However, once Leicester upped the tempo in the second half and scored we always looked second best.

[The Vicar]

Originally Posted by CP-RJW

Thought both teams were mediocre for 60 minutes and 0-0 would’ve been fair. But they blew us away towards the end and merited the 2-0.

^

[Wilbraham413]

Leicester's passing was beautiful, especially on the second goal. Night and day compared to our midfielders' inability to pass. There was one point in the second half when Luka passed the ball straight to the same Leicester player twice in row, 10 yards away from him. It may have actually been three times in a row.

Set pieces also night and day. Ours are hopeless, handled easily by Leicester. On the other hand, every free kick and corner looked like Leicester were going to score. Not sure why we are so horrible defending corners this year.

Also, I wonder if our players are starting to give up on Zaha. They had numerous opportunities today to get the ball to him, but chose not to. It's like they prefer to target Ayew, or take it themselves, maybe due to Zaha's poor recent form, or maybe because they know he's leaving in the near future. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems odd.

It's funny that Wilf commented recently that he can't do it all on his own and teammates needed to do more, then today was complaining he wasn't getting the ball enough.

Overall, Leicester was clearly better in all phases.