Crystal Palace suffered a 3-0 hammering by Bournemouth as their Premier League season threatens to peter out.
Crystal Palace were beaten 3-0 by brilliant Bournemouth as Oliver Glasner rang the changes.
Winning 3-1 in Krakow against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday night, Palace travelled to the Vitality Stadium with no fewer than five changes to that team, as they look ahead to the second leg in a week’s time.
Coming up against a Bournemouth side who have not lost in the Premier League since January 3, it was always going to be a difficult task for Glasner’s men.
And it proved to be just that, with Palace way off it in terms of picking up any sort of positive result.
Jefferson Lerma, one of the five changes to the team, scored an own goal after 10 minutes and the match never really got going from there for the away side.
Junior Kroupi scored from the penalty spot on 32 minutes after Marcos Senesi was brought down after a goalmouth scramble by Dean Henderson.
Palace have the right to feel aggrieved by the nature of the penalty, as it was soft at best, but they could not complain about Kroupi’s finish, which saw him score his 12th Premier League goal of the campaign.
From then on, it was largely a procession, although Glasner did not accept defeat, bringing on some of his big hitters at half-time.
Adam Wharton, Tyrick Mitchell and Ismaila Sarr all came on for Daichi Kamada, Daniel Munoz and Yeremy Pino respectively in moves that may have been partly planned for minute management but also to attempt to give Palace a bit more going forward.
It did not have the desired effect; Palace had just one shot on target the entire match.
Bournemouth’s other exciting teenager Rayan, scored the Cherries’ third of the afternoon after Maxence Lacroix played a poor pass in the direction of David Brooks, who picked out the Brazilian with panache, before he fired it into the bottom corner.
That really was game over, and it was also a goal which saw Palace drop below Leeds on goal difference in the table, slipping to 15th.
Sarr did almost prevent that from being the case when clipping the bar from an Adam Wharton pass, but replays showed it to be offside anyway, and so it would not have counted.
It was a performance of a Palace side that were resting several of their key players, while also playing just three days ago.
Bournemouth, meanwhile showed just how good they have become under Andoni Iraola and they rose to sixth in the Premier League table.