Now that the dust has settled, I still can't get over that bad performance and for the first time, I think this one is all on Ange.
The way we lined up was almost disrespectful to Crystal Palace. This was a game to start Sarr (who was well rested not starting any game since international break), while both Maddison and Moore played big minutes on Thursday night. Our away form is dreadful and I think thats because we treat these games like home games and go out expecting to almost steam roll teams... I wish it was that simple but its not!
Both Son and Odobert were out injured, and tbf most fans were calling for Moore to start so hard to play hindsight now and blame Ange for that one. BUT, I can't help but feel that a top manager sees the challenge Palace will pose and maybe tries playing one of Deki or Madders off the left wing and starts Sarr. Straight away we win more duals and we have that extra body in midfield. More compact and more pragmatic but you will not end up in this situation where we keep getting "outfought" in every away game! We ultimately need to change how we play away from home and sometimes show teams a bit more respect.
Don't get me started on the subs... If the starting team was wrong then the subs were even worse. We ended up with 4 forwards on the pitch for the last 30 mins and it was evident that this was something we never even worked on in training.. This was shocking management! You can't start the game with both Kulusevski and Maddison and then sub them both off together! One of them two should always be on the field. I feel like this was a kneejerk substitution and not one that had been planned correctly. The formation made no sense.
From a Palace point of view, how easy were we to play against? Simple. The Palace manager probably guessed we'd go all out attack and with 2 lightweight wingers in our front 3, Solanke was our only outball. By playing a back 3, it was very easy to nulify him and they knew we'd never go long to Brennan or Mikey. So we just keep playing out. They pressed very well and took Bissouma out of the build up meaning we had to take more risks. We kept playing out with no outball until we got caught. 1-0 Palace. The game was still there for us, but we made the wrong subs and ultimately offered nothing in the second half playing what appeared to be some sort of 4-2-4 formation which every played looked frustrated in.
First time I've said this all season. This defeat is all on Ange. Lets hope he learns from it, we approach away games differently, and that his in game substitutes get better.
