FORMER Crystal Palace defender Joachim Andersen lost his head as the Eagles set a club club record of four consecutive Premier League wins away from home with their 2-0 victory against Fulham at Craven Cottage at the weekend.
Andersen jumped to challenge Maxime Lacroix for Will Hughes’s corner only for the ball to go in off the back of his head to give Palace a deserved lead in the 37th minute. Anderson joined Fulham from Palace for £30million last summer.
Daniel Munoz sealed the win for Oliver Glasner’s side in the 66th minute when Jean-Philippe Mateta played him down the right and he beat Cottagers defender Calvin Bassey in the box before rifling a shot from a tight angle high past Bernd Leno into the roof of the net.
Mateta also had a goal ruled out for a tight offside call at 1-0 in a dominant Palace display.
It was Palace’s fourth consecutive 2-0 win on the road in the league. They have kept five clean sheets in their last five away games and are unbeaten in nine on their travels.
“Congratulations and all the credit to the players for this win,” Glasner said. “Because they worked so hard for this win, they were so disciplined all over the game.
“We didn’t give them clear chances, we were very compact and waited for the situations. We had several chances, then we used a set-play to take the lead. We had to also wait [with the] disallowed goal.
“Then in the next situation, it was an amazing goal, and then we were always defending as a team. We had to be disciplined and wait, staying patient throughout.
“We know that we can always score goals from different situations, we know that we can be very tough to play against, especially when we defend like we did today.”
Glasner added: “It’s not just the back-line, of course, Dean Henderson is doing very well, but everything starts with the front three, because they have to close the passing lines.
“Everybody does their job on a very, very high level, and I think it’s difficult to create chances against us.
“But we always have to be disciplined, and wait for the situations, and I also think, especially in the first half, we did well in possession as well.
“We moved the ball quickly, created some attacking situations, and it’s also important that we can take a breath.
“But when you have the fifth clean sheet in a row, in a way, that always means that you have at least five points.”
Munoz has been a revelation for Palace since he joined from Genk for just £7million in January 2024. He has three goals and three assists this season and he is enjoying his career in England.
“I have always said it: here the atmosphere is an inexplicable thing, unparalleled,” Monoz said. “All the stadiums are full, and you have all the fans – both in your favour and against you – two or three metres away.
“The truth is that you must be very, very, very focused, close your ears to the words of the opposition fans, and concentrate on your game so that things go well on the field. That’s the beauty of being in England, I think that every game is played to its fullest.”
Meanwhile, Fulham boss Marco Silva accepted his side had been second best.
“It definitely was a performance below the standards, if I can say in this way,” Silva said. “We knew before the match that it was going to be a tough game.
“They make it really difficult on the road for any team that they play against. We knew that it’s going to be difficult to break them down. We have to be moving the ball quicker, I think first half we moved the ball too slow in our first build-up.
“We expected them to be a bit more aggressive in the first pressure, they changed it, they sat more in the middle block, and they showed respect for ourselves.
“First minutes, I think we did break well in some moments, some good moves, [but] our last decision, last cross, last pass, was not at the level. And, because of that, first half we didn’t create many, many, many chances. But these type of games can happen.
“Difficult, balanced game, until that moment we had one or two dangerous moments, like they had one with Mateta in the first three or four minutes of the game, and nothing more from both teams in terms of chances.
“But these type of games, the other part of the game that is there, that ugly part, in terms of duels, in terms of individual challenges, we have to be there.
“And the reality is that they scored two goals, they had another disallowed goal, but they scored two goals in two moments where reaching certain standards did not happen.
“The defensive corner they scored for 1-0 when the game was really balanced. They scored, and we have to do better in that moment clearly.
“Even the second goal was a free-kick for us, offensive free-kick for us, and in that moment you have to make a tactical foul to stop that situation. And we didn’t.
“And if you look in the opposite way, every time that we had chances to the counter-attack, they stopped us, tactical fouls, yellow cards, yellow cards, and they were much more mature than ourselves in that moment.
“It’s difficult to say, but that is the reality, they were more aggressive than us in that moment. And the Premier League is like that, when you are not at your best level in terms of creativity, in terms of the dynamic of the team, the other standards have to be there.
“Because if you don’t make mistakes like we made this afternoon, the game is going to be always toe to toe and everything can happen, but the reality is that they punished us in specific moments because we didn’t reach the standards that we should.”
