Stoke City’s Peter Crouch quick to deny Crystal Palace victory

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/13/crystal-palace-stoke-premier-league-match-report

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You could call this match a great advertisement for the Bundesliga, the Championship or fixing that broken shelf in the bathroom. It would be unfair to dismiss it as a complete non-event because both teams scored and collected a point – thanks to James McArthur and Peter Crouch – but distrust anyone who claims it was not gruelling viewing.

“It was like a war of attrition,” said Neil Warnock. “If I was a journalist I’d probably put that in the first paragraph.”

The temperature at kick-off was close to freezing and there was a definite chill in the dug-outs as Warnock and Mark Hughes competed against each other for the first time since Warnock accused the Welshman of destroying his Queens Park Rangers side after succeeding him as their manager in 2012.

The curtness of the pre-match handshake showed that neither man was overly concerned with pretending their relationship has thawed and there was little on the pitch to warm the supporters either.

The teams started as if they had just emerged from hibernation rather than come off the back of positive performances against north London giants. It was a shock when, after 11 minutes of nothingness, Palace plundered a goal. Less surprising was the fact that Yannick Bolasie created it. The winger who had tormented Tottenham Hotspur last week twisted and jigged his way down the left before dispatching a cross that James McArthur headed into the net as Marc Wilson, the one newcomer to Stoke’s line-up since last week’s win at Arsenal, stood staring.

Palace’s inability to take any of the many opportunities that they created at White Hart Lane had exasperated Warnock, so the manager was aghast when they threw away their lead here within 91 seconds of finally converting a chance. After a Palace attack broke down, Bojan Krkic darted past Scott Dann and into the area and pulled a ball back for Jonathan Walters, whose shot deflected off Mile Jedinak into the path of Crouch. The striker rolled it into the net from close range. “We should not get caught on the counter like that,” Warnock said.

After that two-minute goal-splurge, stagnation set in again. Amid the detritus of the rest of the first half Bolasie, Bojan and, to a lesser extent, Wilfried Zaha were the only sources of creativity. In the 26th minute Bolasie launched into another of his anarchic escapades down the left before slipping a sly pass through to McArthur. Asmir Begovic saved at the near post.

Four minutes before the break Bolasie released Zaha, who forced another near-post stop from Begovic.

Even the normally boisterous home crowd were relatively subdued in the first half. Palace tried to turn up the heat in the second period. As the hosts worked up a head of steam, Stoke had to withdraw Krkic, their most inventive player suffering a knock that is not expected to keep him out for long but prevented him from continuing here.

Begovic had to fling himself across his goal to paw away a rasping low shot from 25 yards by McArthur and Palace continued to rumble forward but seldom looked like infiltrating a defence led by Ryan Shawcross.

Play remained pungent until there was a vague whiff of excitement in the 88th minute, Crouch seizing on a breaking ball in the Palace area to poke the ball softly towards the goal. Julián Speroni saved easily.

Shortly afterwards the full-time whistle woke everyone up so they could go home. “The sides cancelled each other out in the second half,” Hughes said.

Having won one of the last 10 matches, Warnock is looking to the January transfer window for solutions. “We really should have won our last five games,” he said. “We’ve got to get two or three players as quickly as possible.”