That’s all from me. It’s been a blast. Here’s a match report for you. Bye!
Alvaro Morata’s yellow card was his 10th of the season, and he will now be suspended for two matches (Leicester away, and Tottenham at home).
A decent performance from Chelsea, who with slightly better finishing would have secured a win of morale-boostingly large proportions. But Palace improved after half-time, following the introduction of Zaha, and at times made them look decidedly wobbly. They hit the post, they had a goal wrongly disallowed, scored a fine goal and had Chelsea clinging on to the three points at the end. So Chelsea get points, but Palace get some encouragement. They remain in the bottom three, but given their remaining fixtures and the return of Zaha surely won’t remain there.
Chelsea had 27 shots in that match. Twenty-seven! That’s a lot, isn’t it? And they scored with a deflection and an own goal. Palace meanwhile had nine shots, and only two on target.
Final score: Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace
90+4 mins: The referee allows the goal kick to be taken, and oversees a little bit of midfieldery, but when it’s played back to Courtois he blows for time!
90+4 mins: Palace keep the ball well, patiently work their opportunity, and finally find Wan-Bissaka on the right, with enough space to consider his cross. He considers it, and then hits a ludicrous, high, looping centre out of play. And that’s the game.
90+2 mins: The linesman clearly got bored of that ruse, because a defender put the ball out of play right under his nose and he gave a goal kick.
90+2 mins: Chelsea appear prepared to spend the entirety of stoppage time near the right-hand corner flag.
90+1 mins: Morata wins a corner, and Willian wins the 2018 all-comers’ slow-walking championship as he prepares to take it.
90+1 mins: There will be at least three minutes of stoppage time.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-1 Crystal Palace (Van Aanholt, 90 mins)
Now it is 2-1! It’s a nice move, which ends with a fantastic reverse pass from Zaha to release Van Aanholt, who takes a touch and shoots low, between Courtois’ legs!
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88 mins: Back to that disallowed goal – Cahill flung his head at the ball as Riedeweld moves towards it. There is simply no way what followed could reasonably be considered a foul, and the score should be 2-1.
88 mins: Hazard and Fabregas have come off, and Pedro and Bakayoko are on.
87 mins: Tomkins finds someone else to argue with, and it ends with both he and Morata being booked.
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86 mins: The free kick is sent in; Riedeweld flings himself at it and finally Sorloth slams it into the net – but the referee has blown his whistle! I think he thought Riedeweld committed a foul, which seems very harsh to me.
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85 mins: Handbags! Palace win a free kick on the right, and as they prepare to take it Tomkins has a disagreement with first Christensen and then Alonso. The referee calms everyone down and waves play on.
84 mins: Match highlight:
Watch out, Roy! #CHECRY pic.twitter.com/Kn7GTb6nhJ
— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) March 10, 2018
83 mins: Palace are really having a go now, and Wan-Bissaka on the right and Riedewald on the left both send in dangerous crosses in the space of a minute, but it all ends in a Chelsea goal kick.
82 mins: A final change for Palace sees Lee Chung-yong come on for Townsend.
80 mins: Willian’s excellent long ball finds Hazard in the area, and he controls, stops, turns and lays back to Morata. This time his low shot is deflected, but it goes over the bar.
78 mins: Morata tries to take the Willian route to goal, by shooting low and feebly from outside the box. No lucky deflection for him.
77 mins: Milivojevic dinks the ball into the box, and it lands on McArthur’s foot, but he’s stretching and can only send it bouncing to Courtois.
75 mins: In further substitutional news, Palace have brought Riedewald on for Schlupp.
72 mins: Giroud is indeed going off. His failure to score today is nothing short of miraculous.
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70 mins: Maybe Conte has given up on Giroud ever scoring – Morata is about to come on.
67 mins: Giroud misses a sitter! Hazard carries the ball 40 yards forward and plays it to Alonso, whose low centre finds the Frenchman, who simply has to score … but hits the post instead!
66 mins: Another free kick for Palace, after Townsend was fouled by Cahill on the right. Townsend crosses, it’s headed clear, and Van Aanholt’s chipped cross is just too strong for McArthur.
64 mins: Palace are at least trying to score a bit in this half, and they might have had a very good chance to do so had Azpilicueta not nicked the ball off the swinging toe of Sorloth.
61 mins: And another chance! Like the last one it’s from a Willian cross, this time in the air, and Giroud heads over!
61 mins: Another goal-saving block! A low ball from the right is turned goalwards by Zappacosta, but with Hennessey beaten Wan-Bissaka gets in the way!
60 mins: Willian takes the free kick and gets the ball over the wall and down again, but it’s not quite close enough to the post, and Hennessey dives to his left to push it clear.
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59 mins: A matter of seconds later Van Aanholt trips Hazard 25 yards from Palace’s goal, and gets booked.
58 mins: In fact Milivojevic smacks it straight into Willian, but the ball rebounds to Van Aanholt, just outside the box, who hits a smart, hard, first-time shot that Courtois saves.
58 mins: Zaha ridiculously dives just outside the penalty area, to the left, but is given a free kick anyway. Townsend has another chance to deliver …
55 mins: Palace have been doing a bit of gentle pressing, which ends almost inevitably with Chelsea nearly scoring. A long ball is flicked to Hazard, who runs into the area, takes a touch to ruin Hennessey’s angle calculations, but the keeper still makes the save.
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51 mins: Tomkins saves another goal! Chelsea break, Willian plays the ball left to Giroud, who pulls it back to Willian. He should have shot straight away, but instead he took a touch and then blasts the ball into Tomkins’ body.
51 mins: Meanwhile in Croatia, a 95th-minute winner from the goalkeeper:
49 mins: The shot was never going in, and perhaps a dink towards the far post would have been a better bet, with Courtois coming out, than a drive to the near.
47 mins: Palace hit the post! It was a defensive horror show from Chelsea, who gave the ball away to Zaha, it bounces off him to Sorloth, and he crashed his shot against the meat of the near post!
46 mins: They’re off! Again!
The players are back out, and ready for more.
Zaha will come on for the second half, replacing Benteke.
Half time: Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace
45+3 mins: Peeeeep! That’s all for now! Both goals owed quite a bit to luck, but the match has been a story of almost ceaseless Chelsea pressure, and the scoreline does not flatter them.
45+2 mins: Townsend hits it not into the area but over it, thereby denying the linesman a chance to give any of two or three Palace players offside. Goal kick.
45+2 mins: The referee indicated that there would be about two minutes of stoppage time. Fabregas concedes a free kick in his own half, and Palace might put the ball into the penalty area!
45+1 mins: And then Chelsea have the ball in the net, but Hazard was offside!
45 mins: Incredible goal-saving clearance! Chelsea slice and dice the Palace defence. Hazard has an easy chance but gives Giroud an easier one – he slides the ball past Hennessey but somehow Tomkins deflects it wide with his heel!
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42 mins: Unless BT Sport’s microphones have broken, Stamford Bridge seems incredibly quiet at the moment. Chelsea might be on song tonight, but their fans don’t appear to be.
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40 mins: Willian has the ball, on the right of the penalty area, with two blue shirts inside him to aim for with the pull-back. Another goal seems likely, almost inevitable, but then Tomkins slides in with a perfect tackle to take the ball away.
39 mins: Zappacosta has had so much of the ball in this half, and so much space in which to receive it. It’s as if Palace have made a conscious decision to leave him alone in the belief that he’s unlikely to hurt them. And to be fair, he hasn’t. Not yet.
37 mins: And yet another cross from the right – Fabregas making an overlapping run this time before putting it in – Giroud heads down, and Alonso’s volley is deflected wide.
36 mins: Chelsea want more – yet another Zappacosta cross, and Giroud heads back across goal, but he can’t find a team-mate.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-0 Crystal Palace (Kelly own goal, 32 mins)
That is just the toughest luck! Alonso’s low ball from the left is dummied by Willian and goes to Hazard, who instead of shooting himself passes to Zappacosta to his right, who given the angle is in a worse position. His low shot beats Hennessey and finds Kelly on the line, whose clearance hits his goalkeeper on the head, bounces back to him, deflects off his thigh and goes in!
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30 mins: Willian plays Zappacosta into space on the right, but there’s not a soul for him to cross to. He hangs about on the wing, waits for a blue shirt to stroll forwards and eventually finds Giroud with a weak cross that is diverted into Hennessey’s hands.
27 mins: Milivojevic passes the ball into Benteke, who taps it first-time to Sorloth, who from 15 yards thumps it 20 yards over the bar! In his defence, I’d say Benteke’s lay-off was a little on the firm side.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Crystal Palace (Willian, 25 mins)
Willian has yet another shot from outside the area. This one is also slow and low – but it clips a defender’s calf, is redirected onto the inside of the near post, and in it goes!
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24 mins: The corner ends with another Willian shot from range. This time it isn’t low – though as it turned out it needed to be quite a bit lower.
23 mins: The game has been paused for quite a while to allow Van Aanholt to receive some treatment. Whenever the cameras focus on the injured player, the physio is just chatting to him, and he’s just having a drink. There is no evidence of any actual injury or any actual treatment. And then he stands up and walks off the pitch, in no apparent discomfort. His side will, however, have to defend a corner without him.
21 mins: Palace just did some attacking. Sorloth even touched the ball inside Chelsea’s penalty area. But it was all a bit slow of pace and half of heart.
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17 mins: Milivojevic fouls Zappacosta near the half-way line. He pulls his shirt and then makes a flying kick at his ankles, with the ball unwinnable from his position. How he wasn’t booked I have absolutely no idea.
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16 mins: Another low shot from outside the area by Willian, and another straightforward save. Palace are defending their box well – and they’re having to do a lot of it.
15 mins: Kante tries to slip the ball into the path of Hazard, bursting into the penalty area, but Giroud makes a fine if unwitting interception, and Palace clear.
12 mins: Ooh! The ball falls to Townsend just outside Chelsea’s area and his powerful first-time, left-foot dips over Courtois, but just over the bar.
11 mins: Chelsea have made an encouraging start here, though. Their attacks have so far been concentrated down the right, with Zappacosta involved in most of them.
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11 mins: And a first shot on target, from Willian, 20 yards out. It’s perfectly aimed but terribly weak, and Hennessey saves.
9 mins: Chance for Chelsea! A corner is half-cleared, put back in, half-cleared, back in, and finally half-cleared to Kante. His shot wasn’t great, but it went just past Giroud, who swivelled and waved a foot at it. Any meaningful contact, from six yards, would have left Hennessey in big, big trouble – but he didn’t make any.
7 mins: Palace win a corner, which is floated to Benteke, running backwards from the middle of the penalty area, but he can get neither power nor direction on his header, and Courtois collects.
6 mins: This is just Giroud’s third league start of the season. Only once has he played more than 61 minutes.
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5 mins: A first effort on goal: Zappacosta crosses from the right and Giroud heads – though it might have been a shoulder – it across goal and wide.
4 mins: Hazard picks the ball up on the edge of the area, holds on to it for a while and then plays a perfect pass down the right wing for Willian to run on to. The cross, though, goes to a defender.
3 mins: Chelsea started the match, and made a gentle foray forward, but Palace won the ball back and then spent a while passing it around the half-way line, the intention clearly being to slow the match down, see out the opening phase, and then take stock.
1 min: Action!
Preamble, preliminaries and applause complete. Nothing now stands between us and action.
Derek Saunders, who made 200 appearances for Chelsea in the 50s and died this week, will be remembered with a minute’s applause before kick-off.
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The players are out!
Antonio Conte has spoken! Quietly!
For sure, this is not a good period for us. Today we have the opportunity to try to change this situation. For sure it’s important for us to play a good game and try to get three points. Also because, if we want to try to reach the target of a place in the Champions League, it’s important not to drop points.
[On picking Giroud in attack] I think that I have to try to find the best solution, and to understand the characteristics of our opponents. We need to play three games in seven days and for this reason I thought that today the best choice was to start with Giroud up front.
“I’m surprised to see him back this quickly,” says Roy Hodgson of Zaha, who along with Sakho is in the squad today – but only on the bench. He has started every game Palace have won this season – and they have lost every game he hasn’t started.
Morata has made one start since January, and it came in that 2-1 defeat at Manchester United a fortnight ago.
Giroud getting the nod continues Alvaro Morata’s exile from the Chelsea starting line-up. Morata hasn’t scored since Boxing Day, and it’s clear his manager no longer fancies him.
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As for Chelsea, it looks as if Antonio Conte has not given up chasing the top four as a bad job, despite being five points behind Spurs. Second start for Olivier Giroud.
West Ham’s meltdown is music to the ears of Palace, as is Southampton’s collapse at Newcastle. Chelsea have Barcelona on their minds, so this could be a chance for Roy Hodgson’s team. That’s if they have recovered from the mental scars of Monday, when Nemanja Matic broke South London hearts.
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This game, though, is taking a back seat for the moment as the antics and anger at West Ham seize the agenda. The Hammers are 3-0 down, and the locals are getting restless.
Will Unwin is on the Clockwatch for the 3pm matches. He’s had plenty to write about.
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The headline there is Zaha being back from injury but only able to start on the bench. He was the architect of Chelsea’s 2-1 defeat at Selhurst in October.
The teams are in:
Chelsea: Courtois; Azpilicueta, Christensen, Cahill (c); Zappacosta, Kante, Fabregas, Alonso; Willian, Giroud, Hazard.
Subs: Caballero, Ampadu, Bakayoko, Emerson, Moses, Pedro, Morata.
Crystal Palace: Hennessey; Wann-Bissaka, Tomkins, Kelly, Van Aanholt; McArthur, Milivojević, Schlupp; Benteke, Sorloth
Subs: Cavalieri, Sakho, Souare, Fosu-Mensah, Riedewald, Lee, Zaha
Hello world!
On 12 December Crystal Palace came back from a goal down with a minute to play to beat Watford 2-1 at Selhurst Park and vaulted to the dizzy heights of 17th in the Premier League table. It was the first time all season, going back to the miserable home thumping by Huddersfield on the opening day, that they had not been in the relegation places, and they were in no hurry to go back. Another win, 3-0 at Leicester, in their following game and they were suddenly 14th. They continued to hover above the drop zone for very nearly three months, until last Monday night, when shortly after half-time against Manchester United they found themselves 2-0 up and 13th; by the final whistle they were 2-3 down and 18th, back in the bottom three.
The good news for them is that Wilfried Zaha could be back today, though he faces a late fitness test on his recently injured knee (Palace in 20 games with Zaha in the team: 27 points; Palace in nine games without Zaha in the team: 0 points). And that they know this task is not impossible, having beaten Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in both of the last two seasons. And that Antonio Conte thinks they’re great: “We’re playing against a really good team, with talented players.” And that Chelsea might be distracted by the prospect of a midweek trip to Barcelona. And that, whatever the result today, their remaining fixtures give them a very decent chance of escaping their current predicament.
The bad news for them is that Chelsea’s recent results have been inconsistent. This, Roy Hodgson explained, makes them so much more threatening than if they were actually playing well: “Normally when you come against a team not having the best of times, that can be a very dangerous time to play them,” he averred. Hmm … I’ll be back just before kick-off, John Brewin will kindly take you through until then.
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