As promised, here is Barney’s report from Selhurst Park.
I’m afraid I must leave you. Barney Ronay’s match report will drop here very shortly. Bye!
Kai Havertz is happy. “I’m happy,” he says. See. “The most important is that we won. After the 5-2 defeat a good game for us. I think we could score more goals but we can be happy. Today I got some chances, I could score one or two more goals, but of course I’m happy.”
The football just keeps on coming: Rob Smyth is watching el Clásico:
I think Barney’s impressed.
That was Benteke's 3rd goal at Selhurst Park in the last 4 years. One more before May and he's in the goal-a-year striker bracket
— Barney Ronay (@barneyronay) April 10, 2021
Final score: Crystal Palace 1-4 Chelsea
90+2 mins: It’s all over! Chelsea made the points almost safe in a blistering opening, and were basically much, much the better side throughout.
90 mins: Chilwell sends the ball skimming across the penalty area. It runs through to Ziyech, on the far corner of the six-yard box, who swings his right foot and ... completely misses it.
87 mins: Terrible miss! Ziyech plays the ball through to Havertz, who shifts it onto his right foot and opens up a shooting chance, only to sidefoot it meekly into the keeper’s arms from 10 yards!
85 mins: Townsend carries the ball forward before playing it through to Zaha, who was offside for ages but reacts to the flag with a lot of disbelieving hand-waving.
83 mins: Chelsea bring Ziyech on for Kovacic.
81 mins: James throws out a foot as Zaha takes the ball past him, actually gets the ball, doesn’t get the man at all, Zaha throws himself to the floor and Palace somehow get a free kick. Nothing comes of it, though.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 1-4 Chelsea (Pulisic, 78 mins)
Chelsea do extend their lead! It’s another good move, and it ends with James crossing from the right, and Cahill’s desperate attempted block only deflects it beyond his keeper’s reach to the far post, where Pulisic arrives to turn it in!
Updated
76 mins: Substitutions for both sides: Andros Townsend comes on for Jordan Ayew, and Reece James comes on for Callum Hudson-Odoi.
75 mins: The game has settled down again after Palace’s promising five minutes, and Chelsea are once again threatening a fourth. Mount has a shot from 22 yards that swerves over th ebar.
72 mins: A long ball over the Palace defence finds Mount, whose chest control is excellent and opens up a shot on goal, which looks to be arrowing into the far corner until Cahill intervenes with a diving block.
68 mins: Chance for Chelsea! Pulisic finds Havertz, in an astonishing amount of space 20 yards from goal and bang central, but his low, hard shot is too close to Guaita.
68 mins: Havertz nearly beats Guaita to Ward’s back-header, but then, well, doesn’t.
65 mins: They send the ball onto Kurt Zouma’s forehead.
64 mins: Hudson-Odoi trips Zaha on the left, and Palace have another chance to send the ball onto Benteke’s forehead.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 1-3 Chelsea (Benteke, 63 mins)
Palace have had a shot on target, and it’s gone in! Schlupp is the architect, running round Kante on the left and sending in an excellent cross, and Benteke will feast on those all day!
Updated
61 mins: Chelsea bring N’Golo Kante on for Jorginho.
59 mins: A pair of changes for Palace, who bring on James McCarthy and Jeff Schlupp and take off Riedewald and Eze.
57 mins: Palace have become combative enough to basically stop Chelsea’s swashbuckling, defence-shredding attacks and make them grind their way forward. They’ve basically taken the poetry out of the game. I preferred it when they were awful.
53 mins: Palace pressure Chelsea, force a mistake in their own half, and nearly convert it into a chance. Sure, the word nearly is disappointing, but if they keep up this level of improvement they might yet have a shot, perhaps even one on target.
50 mins: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better illustration that correlation is not causation,” says Nate Elliott of my “killer stat”. “Rudiger is an acceptably talented centre half at this level, but he’s far from the foundation of an outstanding back line. All this shows is that he’s played most of the time Chelsea have used a back five, and not in the more adventurous and less secure back four.” OK, vaguely interesting stat then.
47 mins: Pulisic passes to Chilwell, who could have crossed to Hudson-Odoi for an easy headed finish but cuts onto his right foot, and could have passed to Mount for an easy sidefoot finish but shoots, and misses.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! Chelsea start the second half.
“Not to be too pedantic, but … has anyone noticed that Leeds have now mathematically guaranteed Premier League football next season – unless West Brom can win all of their remaining games and oversee a 35 goal swing,” writes Russell Richardson. “Sheffield Utd and Fulham are already out of the running. Nice, Marcelo.” Leeds are ninth, Russell.
Killer Vaguely interesting stat:
Chelsea in the 2020/21 Premier League
— Mr. Numbers (@Mister_Numbers) April 10, 2021
Without Antonio Rüdiger:
- 6W 5D 6L (1.35 points/game)
- 25 goals conceded (1.47 per game)
With Antonio Rüdiger:
- 8W 4D 1L (2.15 points/game)
- 5 goals conceded (0.41 per game)
Updated
Half time: Crystal Palace 0-3 Chelsea
45+2 mins: For half an hour Chelsea were so dominant they could have been playing against amateurs, or schoolboys, or lumps of plasticine. Palace improved towards the end of the half, though, and did enough to suggest that this might just end up being a bad defeat rather than a complete humiliation.
45+1 mins: The referee only wants one minute of stoppage time. It start with Ayew in possession on the right; he tries to win a corner off Chilwell, but the ball deflects back into him on its way out and Chelsea have a goal kick.
43 mins: Hudson-Odoi shoots from way off to the right of the penalty area. Literally a million-to-one shot. It goes way, way wide.
42 mins: They’ve done it again! Palace have had a much better last five minutes, and have improved so much they’ve just forced Chelsea into having a goal kick.
39 mins: Palace put the ball in the Chelsea penalty area, and it’s instantly headed away again. Still, the ball has at least visited the box.
36 mins: Mount and Zaha do a little gentle pushing, but it doesn’t progress to VAR-involvement levels.
35 mins: Off the line! Mount sends a corner to the far post this time, and Rudiger’s header would have flown into the corner had Van Aanholt not been there.
33 mins: Mount exchanges passes with Hudson-Odoi before blasting a shot goalwards, which Guaita shovels behind. This has been an extraordinarily one-sided opening third of a football match.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 0-3 Chelsea (Zouma, 30 mins)
Excellent delivery from Mount, whose free-kick dips at the far post and Zouma nods it in!
Updated
29 mins: Kouyate is booked for obliterating Chilwell out on the Palace right.
26 mins: According to whoscored Palace have completed 59 passes, precisely 200 fewer than Chelsea.
24 mins: The ball has spent 3% of its time in Chelsea’s defensive third, which is a surprise.
23 mins: Spectacular save! The ball is played over the Palace defence to Havertz, who with his first touch lifts it over Ward’s challenge, and with his second volleys goalwards! But Guaita saves, and Pulisic is too slow to turn in the rebound.
Updated
22 mins: Van Aanholt just got the ball into Chelsea’s half, and he savoured the feeling of having it there for about a third of a second, before he was dispossessed.
21 mins: I think all of the (now) 18% of possession that Palace have had, has come in their own defensive third. I’d like to know how long the ball has spent in Chelsea’s half, and wager it’s not very.
19 mins: A special 19th-minute post to note that Palace have so far had 19% of possession.
17 mins: Stopwatch-wielders tell me the two Chelsea goals were separated by 102 seconds.
16 mins: Cahill dives to head Chilwell’s corner clear before Rudiger can volley it in. Chelsea haven’t scored three goals in a game under Tuchel but look minded to do that and more this evening.
13 mins: Two very good goals, those. Palace should have stopped the first, but the move that led to the second ripped their defence to pieces and turned it into papier mache.
GOAL! Crystal Palace 0-2 Chelsea (Pulisic, 10 mins)
An assist now for Havertz, who at the end of a fine move pulls back to Pulisic, who takes a touch and rifles a shot past Guaita at the near post and into the roof of the net!
Updated
GOAL! Crystal Palace 0-1 Chelsea (Havertz, 9 mins)
Mount’s cross from the right is volleyed goalwards by Pulisic and well saved by Guaita. It’s cleared out to the left by Palace, where Eze, rather than booting it clear, goes on an enormously foolish dribble and is dispossessed. It’s passed to Havertz in the area and he moves the ball onto his left foot and passes it in at the far post!
Updated
5 mins: The first shot of the game is completely ludicrous, a volley from Mount from an unpromising position to the right of the penalty area that misses the target by an enormous margin.
5 mins: Hudson-Odoi crosses to Pulisic, who goes over under Ward’s challenge. I’d expect Chelsea to appeal for a penalty there, but they didn’t, so they don’t get one.
2 mins: The ball gets a bit stuck on the left side of Palace’s defence, bouncing between members of the two teams but always within the same few square metres.
1 min: Football!
The players are on their way out! Just an anthem and a two-minute silence stand between us and football.
Tommy Tuchel says:
On form and on work rate. We are close to overusing Timo, there’s no point in doing it, and Christian is in good form. I want to have competition for the position. He can show up and challenge for Timo, and on the right side it’s an offensive formation with Callum instead of Reesy. Not a lot of changes. Don’t give the impression we rest players for Tuesday, because that’s not the case. Today’s the most important game because it’s the only game today, and we have a lot to win.
Roy Hodgon says:
It’s always a massive test when you play against Chelsea, home or away. And of course their recruitment, and the way they’ve started under Tuchel, doesn’t make life easy either. But we believe if we play to our best we can certainly give them a very good game.
Chelsea have made three changes to the team that beat Porto in midweek, with Christensen, James and Werner dropping out and Zouma, Hudson-Odoi and Pulisic coning in. Crystal Palace are unchanged, but James McCarthy is back after a few games out with injury, and on the bench.
Liverpool have just scored a lovely stoppage-time probable winner against Aston Villa. Rob Smyth has the latest here:
Updated
I know what you’re saying: who on earth is Rak-Sakyi? Jesurun Rak-Sakyi is an 18-year-old described on Crystal Palace’s website as “a talented attacking wideman who previously represented Chelsea” and has been “described by manager Roy Hodgson as having ‘a big future’”.
The teams!
Team news is in, and you can work it out for yourselves from this list of names:
Crystal Palace: Guaita, Ward, Kouyate, Cahill, Van Aanholt, Ayew, Milivojevic, Riedewald, Eze, Benteke, Zaha. Subs: Butland, Dann, Townsend, Mateta, Schlupp, McCarthy, Mitchell, Kelly, Rak-Sakyi.
Chelsea: Mendy, Azpilicueta, Zouma, Rudiger, Hudson-Odoi, Jorginho, Kovacic, Chilwell, Mount, Pulisic, Havertz. Subs: Arrizabalaga, Alonso, Kante, Abraham, Werner, Giroud, Ziyech, James, Emerson Palmieri.
Referee: Michael Oliver.
COME ON YOU PALACE#CPFC | #CRYCHE
— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) April 10, 2021
Team news is in! 🤝#CRYCHE pic.twitter.com/IlXTip8L6h
— Chelsea FC (@ChelseaFC) April 10, 2021
Hello world!
Chelsea did the double over Crystal Palace last year, and also the year before that, and they won their home game against them 4-0 in October. None of this sounds like good news for Roy Hodgson’s brave charges, and then there’s the fact that Crystal Palace have only won one of their last five games (against West Brom), while Chelsea have only lost one of their last five games (also against West Brom). Still, probably worth playing it out, for the sake of sporting decency.
Some team news: Michy Batshuayi is unable to spent the entire match on Crystal Palace’s bench because they are playing his parent club (he has, to be fair, actually played six minutes in their last six games, and that was in their last one, and he scored, so he might have seen some more action this evening had he only been allowed). Chelsea have a fully fit squad to choose from, but Thiago Silva is suspended following last week’s comedy red card and there might be some Champions League-related tiredness or distraction - the other English clubs still in Europe’s premier competition have both had dodgy days. Can Chelsea avoid the trap? Time to find out!
Um, nearly.
