Alan Pardew arrived on the south coast smiling and will have left with the same expression after stretching Palace’s unbeaten run to five matches, but he still found it tough to pin down Eddie Howe. Pardew, who twice tried to sign the Bournemouth manager as a player, sorely missed the added pizzazz of the winger Yannick Bolasie who missed the trip with a back injury.
Palace’s commanding defensive pairing of Damien Delaney and Scott Dann rarely looked unnerved and only a deflected shot from Junior Stanislas and a header from Matt Ritchie worried the visiting goalkeeper, Wayne Hennessey.
“My back four were terrific – we had to lean on them a little bit. They were so resilient, so organised that back four,” said Pardew, lauding his players another near perfect away display. Palace had recorded wins on the road at Chelsea, Liverpool and Stoke this season but never really looked like racking up another on the south coast, despite evidently shaking off any Christmas hangovers with an assured and strong display.
The draw means Palace can still very much dream of playing European football next year after Manchester United’s defeat at home to Stoke moved them up to fifth.
Glenn Murray, who scored 44 goals for Palace across a four-year spell at the club and was serenaded by the away supporters throughout, was guilty of missing Bournemouth’s best chance. The striker was on the receiving end of a few cuddles during the pre-match handshakes and looked like a man who did not want to score when his powder-puff effort failed to trouble Hennessey, following a driving run from the midfielder Dan Gosling.
He was arguably at fault for gifting Palace one of their better openings, too, losing possession to the Palace captain, Delaney, who brilliantly picked out Fraizer Campbell with a diagonal ball, but his curling effort failed to test Artur Boruc.
Campbell, making only his second league start of the season, had Boruc back-pedalling after nine minutes when his strike deflected off Adam Smith and narrowly over the frame of the hosts’ goal.
Palace were in the mood and Bournemouth, after three wins on the bounce, were more careless than usual. Pardew, who is in early talks over a new contract at Selhurst Park, patrolled the touchline with his pen and paper, kicking every ball. He started the game giving the thumbs up to home fans before watching his side slowly lose their grip. First, he lambasted the winger Wilfried Zaha for failing to track Stanislas.
Joel Ward, who made 16 appearances for Bournemouth while on loan, struggled to contain Stanislas and allowed the winger to float the ball towards Murray, only for the Scotland international Ritchie, arriving late into the box, to nod his header wide of Hennessey’s goal.
The meeting of two of the Premier League’s in-form teams – second and fourth in the form table – was never easy on the eye and there was certainly no love lost between the two sides here. The referee, Michael Oliver, booked the Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter for a late, crunching challenge on Zaha. Delaney did his best to calm Zaha while Arter did not return for the second half.
“Wilf doesn’t like getting tackled,” said Pardew. “He is a wide player – none of them do. Every wide player I have worked with – they never like it.”
Howe, though, will take great solace in silencing Palace’s wide men, given that a trip to the Emirates Stadium is up next. “It is a sign we have grown as a side and have improved,” said Howe. “We are harder to beat now and that is six games unbeaten now.”
While Pardew threw on Yohan Cabaye, the club’s £10m record signing, the Bournemouth manager, who is close to sealing a loan move for the Roma forward Juan Iturbe, turned to the South Africa striker Tokelo Rantie, who has not scored since October last year, but he, too, failed to trouble the Palace defence.
“I had to bring on Cabaye to try to get some of the ball,” said Pardew. “In the last six minutes I think it showed – Bournemouth couldn’t raise a leg last six minutes, probably our best period of the game.”
