October 26 2013

Selhurst Park

Crystal Palace put in a much improved performance but still came away losing 2-0 to Arsenal.

Keith Millen, in charge after the departure of Ian Holloway opted for a more defensive lineup to the one that started against Fulham on Monday evening.

Barry Bannan, Adlene Guedioura, Jerome Thomas and Kagisho Dikgacoi came into the side, and Millen opted to start Marouane Chamakh up front on his own against his old club.

Arsenal started brightly and Palace struggled to get into the Gunners' half of the pitch in the first 15 minutes.

Oliver Giroud headed over from a cross by Bacary Sagna, however Palace soon had chances of their own.

Jerome Thomas broke free on the left and crossed to Barry Bannan who failed to get his header on target.

The chance seemed to give Palace belief, and they had further chances for Chamakh and Bannan, who cross/shot almost found Damien Delaney on the far post.

After the break, all the hard work of the first half was undone within two minutes of the restart.

Guedioura who had a great first half display, went into a challenge on Serge Gnabry far too strongly and up-ended the German in the box, and referee Chris Foy pointed to the spot.

Mikel Arteta converted the penalty to put Arsenal 1-0 up.

The Gunners almost made it 2-0 straight away, with an effort blocked by Delaney which almost ended up in the back of the net.

Palace had a chance to get back into it though on 65 minutes when Chamakh raced forward on the counter attack, and tussled with Arteta, and the Spainard's leg caught the former Arsenal forward to send him tumbling.

Referee Chris Foy deemed it a professional foul, and sent Arteta for an early bath.

Palace's best chances to equalise, after the sending off, came through Joel Ward and Mile Jedinak.

First Ward had a cracking effort tipped onto the bar by Wojciech Szczesny and then, from the resulting corner, produced a brilliant one-handed stop to turn over a dipping strike from Jedinak.

With time running out Arsenal doubled their lead on 86 minutes when Aaron Ramsey broke down the left and delayed a chipped pass through for Giroud, who arrived on cue to nod the ball past Julian Speroni.

All in all a much better performance from Palace all round, but still an eighth defeat out of nine in the Premier League this season.

Palace: Speroni, Gabbidon, Moxey, Ward, Delaney, Thomas (Bolasie, 58), Guedioura (Kebe, 72), Dikgacoi, Bannan (Gayle, 77), Jedinak, Chamakh

Subs not used: O'Keefe, Mariappa, Price, Puncheon

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