At Palace.
A very good ball player who always seems to have time on the ball.
In fact, Palace could be very decent next season if they manage to hold on to their players.
To suggest we were lucky misses the point that our goals v XG suggest that we haven’t been lucky for most of the season.
We have made more chances this season than for years. That would suggest we are getting better. I guess our problem is that when we are awful we are truly awful and as you say, revert to 100% punted long ball. But as last night showed, we don’t need to.
Sell Onana, Gomes end of contract and then bring in a couple of decent ball players on lower wages should see us improve markedly.
This is an odd one. Early in the season I thought we tried to play more like yesterday, not as much punting the ball upfields and hoping for the best but being on the front-foot, high pressure and quick counters on the deck. Then we went to that punting and hoping to get a set piece to score from which is just very dull.
Strangest thing, IMO, is that the style actually worked pretty well, we were just unlucky and finishing was poor. Now our last three wins have been a bit fortunate, yesterday was a great performance, but we were a bit lucky with the first goal & they had poor finishing and hit the post. Earlier in the season I feel things could have gone the other way.
This is the main difference between Dyche and Allardyce. We have more often than not actually had the better chances. Allardyce was very, very lucky with results. How many times did we win after having barely a shot on goal? Even at our worst we have had more chances than that in almost every match.
I do think Dyche has shown he has in himself to make the team play more proactively and he should. His hopeful punts tactic did not really work, it coincided with the horrible run of results. Did he feel we were left too exposed at the back?
Having said that, 41 points with four matches to go is the best we have had since Ancelotti if I'm not mistaken. With a bit more reasonable luck we'd have quite a few more points as well.
Considering we don't have any decent right-backs, just one decent left-back, erratic midfielders, wingers who have blown hot and cold (mostly cold) and forwards who can't score that's not bad at all.
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