Tottenham Beat Ten-Man Crystal Palace 2-0 as Pierre Sage Feels the Pressure
Tottenham beat Crystal Palace 2-0 on Saturday, and the result left Palace in the Premier League's bottom three. Archie Gray and Jan Paul van Hecke scored, and Palace played most of the match with ten men.
The first goal came in the 25th minute. Mohammed Kudus swung a corner in from the right, and Gray rose at the back post, where no Palace player was marking him, to head home. It was the kind of goal that comes from a set piece that has been worked on in training.
The game turned in the 13th minute. Palace's Jean-Philippe Mateta went in with a studs-up challenge on Micky van de Ven. Referee Michael Oliver first showed him a yellow card. Then the video assistant referee, a team that reviews key moments on replays, told Oliver to look again, and he changed it to a red. The Premier League's own review of the decision described full, forceful contact with the studs on the opponent's Achilles, the tendon at the back of the heel.
Palace were forced to defend for long spells after that. Van Hecke made it 2-0 with 17 minutes left to play, heading in to settle the contest. Tottenham Hotspur reported that manager Roberto De Zerbi praised his team's maturity as they dominated the ten men.
For Palace, the defeat is a serious one. It was their third straight league loss, and The Guardian reported that manager Pierre Sage's position is precarious. Sage made two changes to his line-up for the trip to north London. The club's chairman, Steve Parish, is the man who will decide Sage's future. Palace are next due to play Liverpool at home, before the international break, the pause in club football for national team matches.
Tottenham came into the game on the back of wins over Coventry and Chelsea. This was their third successive victory, and the first time they have won three in a row in 616 days. The result lifted them into the top half of the table, to eighth.
Spurs fans have waited a long time for a run like this, and the afternoon ended with a clean sheet and two goals from two different scorers. Palace, meanwhile, have a difficult few days ahead. A club in the bottom three, a manager under pressure, and a red card that changed the game: that is the picture at the end of a match that many in north London will remember for the goals rather than the drama.
