Crystal Palace have continued their poor run of form in the Premier League as they fell to a defeat at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur. The loss has seen Pierre Sage’s side drop into the relegation zone, sitting in 18th place with a measly seven points after nine games. 

At this rate, Palace will finish the season with around 30 points, and will have conceded around 88 goals too. 

It can’t continue as it is, but what went wrong at Spurs, and what possible takeaways are there?

Palace were competing well with the hosts until Jean-Philippe Mateta lunged for a loose ball, mistiming the challenge and catching Mickey Van De Ven on the achilles. After a VAR review, Michael Oliver decided that the contact met the threshold for a red card and sent Mateta off. 

Palace would have to play the remaining eighty minutes or so with ten men, and from that point, no matter what they did, any positive result was virtually out of reach. 

This problem has once again hindered Pierre Sage, and the true frustration is that from this game, we simply don’t know if there is any improvement. Whilst Palace defended relatively well throughout, playing with ten men for almost an entire game meant the setup had to change and the approach was sacrificed to defend deep and protect the Palace goal. 

In the defeat at home to Ipswich, Axel Disasi made a similarly clumsy challenge, and not only did it hinder Palace in the remaining minutes of that game, but it ruled him out for three further games. Palace will now be without their frontman for the next three games, and with Strand Larsen’s fitness a continuous issue, it will likely mean Palace have to turn to Nketiah to lead the line in the Premier League. 

The games that Mateta will miss included two huge opportunities for big wins. Liverpool travel to Selhurst Park next weekend, which is followed by consecutive matchups with Coventry and Hull, two must win games. 

Players making errors is not a problem, it happens every week across the leagues. However, Palace simply are not learning from their previous mistakes. Whilst the opening goal came after Palace had gone down to ten men, it was another goal from a set piece, and more concerningly, another free header at the back post. 

This has been a consistent trend throughout the season, and even following Archie Gray’s goal the back line continued to leave either him or other Spurs players unmarked. That would suggest it’s an instruction from the coaching team, to mark zonally, although that doesn’t explain why through that zonal marking the back post is left unoccupied every time. 

Damien Della Santa is in charge of set piece training at the club, and it’s difficult to understand how he’s not been able to spot and fix this issue, considering that almost every single fan has appeared to notice it too. 

The re-introduction of the Kamada x Wharton pivot in midfield further highlighted the lack of defensive ability that both have. In the long-term, one of Doucouré, Lerma or Hughes must start to sure things up, until Palace are able to invest in a new defensive midfielder in January. 

There’s continued debate that Pierre Sage should switch to a back four formation, but there is little to suggest that would actually work. 

This game had initially been billed as a make or break match for Sage’s future, alongside the game in midweek against Fulham. Whilst Palace snuck beyond the Cottagers to reach the quarter finals of the Carabao Cup, the defeat to Spurs will likely not result in Sage’s dismissal.

In part, that will be down to the red card for Mateta. Circumstances have to be considered when making these decisions, and when you look at the number of things going against Sage and the side, it’s hard to believe there was ever any real pressure on this game in isolation. 

Now, it’s likely that the timeframe simply moves to this week, as Palace face two big matches. On Thursday, they host German club Hoffenheim before Liverpool travel to Selhurst Park. After that, it’s the consecutive games against Hull and Coventry, two matches which Sage deserves the chance to manage and Palace will undoubtedly be seeing as must wins.