What a night. What a fantastic, crazy, epic night.
Wandering up to ground in the freezing rain – tense. Nervous. Excited. Huge, huge game. A win would be massive, the unthinkable crushing. Team news in – couple of changes – Montoya in for the injured Capitan, and super Glenn restored in place of Saturday’s match-winner Florin Andone.
As for the visitors:
The Albion settle in to a satisfyingly adventurous early rhythm – a corner won after 20 seconds setting the tone – and firmly on the front foot for the opening exchanges. Palace have five minutes in the ascendancy, culminating in Townsend wasting a decent headed chance. Game’s warming up nicely.
Twenty minutes in, and our referee Mr. Friend takes centre stage. Palace have two goes at clearing their lines. The newest overhyped Eagles wunderkind Wan-Bissaka makes a real mess of it – heading backwards into his own box instead of away – straight to the lurking Jose Izquierdo. As the Colombian shapes to poke goalward, he’s challenged by McArthur, sending both to the floor. To the horror of the Palace man, and the away fans behind the goal, Mr. Friend points to the spot. On later viewing it’s as harsh a call as they come –he’s definitely played the ball. Shame. Terrible, terrible shame.
Can barely watch. Convinced myself Glenn’s going to miss it. Strikes the ball – its rising – rising – rising – shit no – YESSSSSS – in off the bar! Glenn is mobbed right in front of his former public, by ecstatic team-mates. Amex is rocking. Seven in seven Premier League home games for Murray. Remarkable.
Barely have the cheers subsided, when 25,000 throats are screaming at the ref for another penalty. Murray brings the ball down in the box, and the clumsy Tomkins clatters into him, sending him crashing to the turf. I’m convinced that had he not given one moments earlier, he’d have given this, but points only for a corner. Murray is hurt. Albion are fuming. There’s handbags and face-offs all around. Shane Duffy loses the plot, and not three feet from the ref, thrusts his forehead into the face of Van Aanholt. The Dutchman throws himself to the floor clutching his (untouched) nose. He’s mugged Duffy right off – suckered him. Shane you bloody idiot. Sake. Euphoria evaporates. Can 10 men defend a one goal lead for over an hour? Sake Shane.
While Murray receives treatment for what looks like a shoulder injury, poor Pascal Groß is sacrificed, for a replacement defender – Leon Balogun jogs on, and straight into the Palace box to await the corner kick. Solly March – more on him later – swings over another peach. It takes a flick off a Palace head, and there’s only Balogun – swiveling to volley home, waist high, with his very first touch of the ball. Incredible. Palace scratching heads. Albion voices re-found. Can 10 men defend a TWO goal lead for over an hour? Game on.
Murray succumbs to his injury shortly after – Florin Andone introduced – not the end of the world – nobody better to harass the Palace extra man. Palace have a spell of pressure – Bernardo hacks Milivojevic’ effort off the line. Mr. Tumble is getting frustrated, and has his first little cry of the night, feeling Balogun’s (fair) tackle is unnecessarily strong. Bless. His adoring public would never, ever see it, but Zaha along with being their biggest threat, he’s also part of their problem – he disappears in adversity, and his decision-making is utterly woeful. And he’s a complete dick. Obviously.
Into four added minutes at the end of a breathless first half. Feels a big moment – reach the break with the two-goal lead, and this looks doable. Attack repelled. And another. Come on ref FFS. Blow your whistle. It’s in the box again. Ball is loose. Crap! Get it away. Bernardo hacks clear as Townsend swings a boot – the ball is sailing over halfway, to safety. Tomkins is jogging after it, to take the throw. Andone isn’t jogging. Andone is tearing after it. Tomkins reacts too late – the Albion number 10 gets there a split second before it goes out of play – flicks it down the line, and hares after it, leaving the Palace carthorse and his stable-mate Sakho wheezing behind him.
Hennessy could have easily averted the danger by coming to meet it, but is frozen to his line. As Andone reaches the corner of the six-yard box, Tomkins finally catches up, gets a weak toe to the ball, setting it nicely, for the Romanian to side foot calmly into the far corner. Utterly amazing. Absolute scenes! Amex is bouncing. I’m hugging everyone. Florin Andone you bloody HERO.
Whistle goes.
And breathe…
Half time is mad. Everyone is shell-shocked – Albion happily so – Palace look numb. Their fans are silent. Some have had enough and head for the exits. You’ve 45 minutes left lads. Against ten men. WTF?
Second half is going to drag like hell. Need to protect this clean sheet for as long as humanly possible. Don’t give them a sniff. Five minutes in – another set-back – Izquierdo off with a knock. All subs used by the 49th minute. Massive kudos to Hughton here, for making a like-for-like swap – Anthony Knockaert replacing the limping Jose. For 45 minutes of attack v defence it must have been tempting to throw on the energy of Beram Kayal to add a body in midfield.
The game settles into a pattern. I could write up a dozen or so passages of play, but they were all the same, so instead I’ve produced an explanatory flow-chart:
Palace fans are getting increasingly frustrated. Mr. Tumble too – mixing up running down blind alleys, with throwing his arms up at his team-mates, his bottom lip all aquiver. Making no headway, he takes his angst out on Solly March – who spins away from him on the right, and has his Achilles raked for his troubles. This challenge was 20 yards in front of me, and he absolutely meant it. Given all his media bleating about needing more protection from rough treatment, he can add ‘disgusting hypocrite’ to his list of titles. March has been superb tonight, at both ends of the pitch – a threat going forward – excellent delivery – and doubling up with Montoya to stifle the aforementioned Palace talisman.
Props to Montoya, too. He had a bit of a torrid time at Cardiff, and I feared the worst. Maybe it’s about the quality of opponent – Kadeem Harris is quite good, after all. All of the ten in blue and white have been magnificent, to be fair – Bissouma looking the player people so want him to be, and more than justifying his inclusion ahead of King Beram – Davy Pröpper top class, ensuring at least an element of control for his numerically disadvantaged side. Maty Ryan – few saves to make, but tidy handling and a calm head when needed – enraging the dwindling Croydon mob by taking his time whenever possible, to run down the clock.
Zaha is fuming now. Nothing’s going his way. The Amex serenades him “Cry in a minute. He’s gonna cry in a minute”, and genuinely it looks like he might. He runs down the right, Balogun stretches to tackle – the ball knocked on, out of play. Zaha jogs after it to take a corner, but is left aghast, as the ref signals a goal kick. A new development here – as he stands arms outstretched crying like a bitch – his fawning acolytes in the stand have turned – screaming at him to get on with the game (that they are getting schooled in). I'm sure it actually was a corner, too. Which is funnier.
Andone and Knockaert are tirelessly chasing lost causes upfield, then shuttling back to make blocks and tackles. The former slides in to dispossess Zaha, and takes a snide boot to the knee from the sulking, spoilt, England reject. Incredible that Mr. Friend sees fit not to brandish at least a second yellow. The FA won’t act, as the ref saw the foul, but they’ll presumably keep the clip on file for the next time young Wilf starts grizzling about protection. We’ve covered ‘hypocrite’, right?
Milivojevic gets his own name in the book for a cynical foul on Andone, before, having escaped punishment, for his own ‘tackling’, Zaha wins his inevitable penalty for the night. No complaints – Balogun slid in, and missed the ball. Milivojevic slides it home, and any sense of comfort in the lead evaporates. Nerves abound. Ten minutes left plus injury time. This could be horrendous.
Surprisingly, the anticipated drama never really comes – refer to the earlier flow-chart to cover the next passage of play. Five added minutes go up on the board – and they tick by without incident. Huge celebrations from the good guys at the whistle. Great moment. Players embracing all over the field – clapping the stands – performing impromptu victory jigs.
After a few of these derby games, where it didn’t feel that all our players really ‘got it’, this one turned it all on its head. They got it this time all right.
Absolutely, utterly magnificent.
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