“I’ve just seen the result at Goodison,” said Alan Pardew after Crystal Palace’s 11th victory in their past 16 matches away from the shortly to be transformed Selhurst Park left his side sixth in the Premier League, level on points with Tottenham and Manchester United in fourth and fifth. “I mean, every time we try to get the headlines Leicester keep kicking us in the pants.”
The grin on his face suggested Pardew was happy enough, on all counts. The remarkable success being enjoyed by Claudio Ranieri’s team means the almost equally impressive progress being made by Palace, and indeed Stoke, is under less of a potentially off-putting spotlight. It also emphasised that, as Pardew and Mark Hughes both suggested, there really has been an encouraging reduction in the size of the gap between the so-called big clubs and the rest.
“Before the start of the season I certainly said, and I know Arsène Wenger and a couple of managers said, the quality coming into teams like us and Stoke – I look at the technical quality in Stoke and but for a couple of results it could be them in this position, they’re a great team – means we really are not far away from the top teams and it’s making for some fantastic games,” said Pardew.
“We were all beginning to worry three or four years ago that it looked like the gap was only going to get bigger. It hasn’t, and for all the money that’s being spent, we’re getting the quality of 11 players on the pitch that are not too far away from some of the top teams. The top teams are probably more concerned than they’ve been for a long time. Good.”
Amen to that, though Hughes, understandably perhaps after seeing his team undone by a brilliant 30-yard effort from the Palace substitute Lee Chung-yong, a side-foot shot that curled at pace across and beyond the City goalkeeper Jack Butland just a couple of minutes from time, was a little more cautious.
“This year isn’t a one-off, it would be more prevalent in years to come and I think maybe there has been a changing of the guard somewhat,” Hughes said.
“The middle group has got stronger, there are only so many players that top clubs can really bring into their squad to make them better. The ones with the most resources will invariably filter their way back up to the top but it’s good that you see fresher faces and it makes it more interesting. Hopefully we’ll be in the mix towards the end as well.”
On this evidence the likelihood is Stoke will, along with a Palace side watched by the new American investors who will hopefully make them permanent members of the Premier League’s upper echelons.
While Bojan Krkic, Marko Arnautovic and Xherdan Shaqiri got rather less change out of the Palace defenders than they did out of the Manchester City defenders a fortnight earlier, Stoke still enjoyed much the greater share of possession, and created many more chances than a Palace team missing the playmaker Yohan Cabaye.
They could not beat Palace’s in-form goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey, though, and an exchange of penalties – Palace’s nailed on, Glenn Whelan clearly fouling Wilfried Zaha, Stoke’s less so, a debatable handball against Damien Delaney – looked to have ensured a division of the spoils before Lee’s technically outstanding late strike.
The Palace defender Scott Dann, up there with Hennessey as contender for the man of match, echoed his manager’s sentiments. “I think there are a lot of teams around there. Leicester are top of the league, then we have West Ham, ourselves, there are not many points between them and it’s all up for grabs. There’s no reason why we can’t be up there and trying to push on as far as we can.”
Palace travel to Bournemouth on Boxing Day, while Stoke welcome Manchester United. Hughes was sanguine about the prospects of facing his stagnating former club.
“We’ll look forward to it. Confidence-wise we’re not damaged by the performance against Palace, though the result is obviously a disappointment. but we’ll look ahead to the United game. At the moment it seems like they’re not in great shape so it might be a good time to play them.”
Man of the match Wayne Hennessey (Crystal Palace)
