By Freddie Jennings at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
CRYSTAL Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta’s thirteenth-minute red card against Tottenham Hotspur proved a decisive moment as a 2-0 defeat in this London derby heaped more pressure on Eagles boss Pierre Sage.
Palace are now in the bottom three having won just two of their nine Premier League games this and will be without Mateta against Liverpool, Coventry City and Hull City.
Palace have lost three successive Premier League games without scoring, while Spurs made it three wins from three.
The turning point was Mateta’s dismissal following a video assistant referee (VAR) review by Michael Oliver, after the French international caught Micky van de Ven on the back of his leg with his studs. It appeared to be an unnecessary lunge and though he was going for the ball, Mateta’s action cost Palace in a fixture that already looked very difficult on paper.
The task was made even harder as Archie Gray took advantage of more poor marking from Palace at the back post when he headed home Mohammed Kudus’ corner after 25 minutes. It came at a terrible time for the visitors, who had just started to settle with their numerical disadvantage, but their inability to defend set-pieces once more acted against them.
Palace showed plenty of spirit to go in at half time only 1-0 down, and even had a glorious chance when Daichi Kamada’s looping ball found Dwight McNeil unmarked in the box. The former Everton and Burnley winger made weak contact, though, and Dominic Solanke was able to block it.
Tottenham’s control of the ball and territorial domination eventually took its toll on a tiring Palace and the home side secured the win after 73 minutes when Jan Paul van Hecke’s header was tipped on to the bar by goalkeeper Dean Henderson only for the ball to rebound to the Dutch defender who nodded in from a sitting position close to the line.
If ever a goal exemplified how poor Palace have been at defending crosses this season, this was it.
While Spurs boss Roberto De Zerbi has been able to generate an upturn in form after a difficult start to the season, there was again no reprieve for Sage, though the circumstances of the loss were partly out of the Frenchman’s hands. Mateta’s red card forced the team into a defensive system that affected their ability to create genuine chances, while the inability to properly mark the opposition at set-pieces cost them again.
Sage will have been disappointed not to build on the 1-0 victory away to Fulham in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night, when his name was chanted by the travelling fans. The same happened in the second half here as Eagles fans clearly backed their manager. The team were eventually over-run as Henderson had to make several fine late saves, but by that point Palace knew the contest was over.
Yet it wasn’t a performance of players who have given up on their coach as they continued to shut off space and close down those in white.
Sage was open about the game and had no complaints about the red card. “No, I think the decision is normal. We touched a player where we couldn’t touch him. That is why the red card came. I have nothing to comment on,” Sage said.
“We chose to be more compact and to let the ball to the opponent, and we took this first goal on set-pieces. During half-time, we take other objective to stay like this until minute 75.”
On his own future and what he can do to improve the side, he said: “I am the first to help the team. For sure, I have things to do. That is why I make the plan to come back after minute 75 with substitutions.
“It is a problem with performance at the moment, as a team we can be better, especially with the ball.”
