Key events
65 min: Summerville shows startling balance to evade two Palace tackles on the left wing but Lerma intercepts his attempted through ball to Castellanos. Lerma then slips and Castellanos pounces, only to stumble himself just as he was taking aim! Palace escape, there.
63 min: Bowen has had no change out of Mitchell this evening. The Palace left-back has been excellent. Not sure he will do enough to usurp O’Reilly and Lewis Hall in Tuchel’s plans for this summer, but Mitchell is a very dependable player (that probably won’t win you a World Cup).
61 min: Nervier times for West Ham, with Palace in the ascendency. Hammers fans, would you take a draw at this point?
59 min: Palace make a triple change! The home side have been much better this second period and Glasner smells blood. Here come the cavalry: Mateta for Strand Larsen, Sarr for Pino and Kamada for Hughes.
57 min: Another flowing Palace move – their best of the match – starts with Strand Larsen/Hughes/Pino and ends with another telling cross from the right curling towards the back post. Again, West Ham get bodies back and Fernandes is there to clear.
55 min: Wasteful from Johnson again! The former Spurs winger gets to the byline but crosses straight into the arms of Hermansen. I wonder if we might see Sarr replace Johnson soon, with the Englishman also on a booking.
53 min: Finally, Palace click into gear! Seemingly for the first time, Strand Larsen gets away from Disasi and finds Munoz with a neat pass. It goes down the line to Johnson, who whips a very useful pass across West Ham’s six-yard box. Walker-Peters cleans up at the back post, with Mitchell lurking. Better from the home side.
51 min: More West Ham pressure! Bowen tries his luck from range – blocked by Hughes – before West Ham’s captain hooks a useful cross to Palace’s back post, where Richards clears.
49 min: Bowen, one of just two English players in West Ham’s starting XI tonight, nearly scores direct from a corner! Only the alertness of Canvot at the near post stops the ball from going into the net!
46 min: Almost immediately after kick-off, Disasi’s elbow crashes into the back of Strand Larsen, who folds like a deck chair and lies crumpled on the ground. Ouch.
Peeeeeeeep!
We’re off again in south London. No changes from either side.
Half-time reading:
Half-time: Crystal Palace 0-0 West Ham
Palace (and Spurs) are fortunate that it is still goalless.
45+2 min: “Wolves fans will be picking themselves off the floor after your suggestion Joao Gomes, Hwang Hee-Chan and Angel Gomes are the most likely players to be picked up byvprem clubs. Hwang is useless, 4 goals in 43 Premier League appearances over the last two seasons! Angel Gomes has been a disappointment, gets subbed off before the hour mark when he starts. Not physical enough for the league.”
Have to say I haven’t watched a lot of Wolves recently. Angel Gomes is a fine player – he played for England as recently as November 2024 and in the Champions League for Marseille this season. But he has obviously not made the right impact at Wolves. He dictates play and isn’t very good defensively and that’s not much use when Wolves don’t have much of the ball.
45 min: Four minutes added on. Palace have been really poor this half but burst forward on the counter-attack, at the end of which Mitchell drags a shot wide.
Bullet header from Mavropanos, saved!
43 min: Fair play to Henderson, who has had a clumsy first half but makes an excellent save here to keep West Ham at bay. Diouf wriggles free on the left and swings a inch-perfect cross with verve and dip to the back post. Mavropanos arrives right on time and nods powerfully at goal, but Henderson is equal to it!
41 min: Pleased to say that both Diouf and Johnson are back on their feet and back on the pitch. Play on.
39 min: Johnson and Diouf clash heads and both men hit the turf. That looked a nasty one and the medical teams rush onto the pitch to treat the two players.
Lacroix clears an overhead kick off the line!
38 min: Henderson punches poorly under a high ball and the loose ball falls to Castellanos on the penalty spot. The Argentinian tries the spectacular bicycle kick and the connection is good, but Lacroix is in the right place to knee the shot away! Henderson was bailed out by his mate there, and it remains goalless.
35 min: A nasty (albeit unintentional) tackle from Hughes leaves Summerville on the deck again, with the Dutchman clutching at his achilles. Again, no card.
33 min: “A couple of decades ago, there was an experiment in non-league football about switching to kick-ins instead of throw-ins,” emails Andy Flintoff. “All this led to was six-yard boxes being crowded waiting for the kick whenever the ball went out within 40 yards of the goal, and tedious football so the experiment was discarded. Now each Premier League team has at least one player who can hurl the ball 30+ yards from a throw-in, so now we have crowded six-yard boxes waiting for the long throw whenever the ball is put out within 40 yards of the goal, and tedious football. Funny how history repeats itself, isn’t it?”
I don’t think it will be soon as I don’t think it is a problem that is easily solved, but I wonder if we might see a rule change in a few years. Those throws really are an abominable spectacle, once you get over the athleticism/novelty of it all.
31 min: After Henderson gifts West Ham a corner, Diouf nods back towards goal towards Disasi, who slices a shot over the bar on the swivel. The West Ham loan signing was actually offside, but it was still a dangerous situation for the visitors, who look the more likely to score.
29 min: Great defending from Richards to deny Summerville. The West Ham winger had only the American to beat as he surged forward, but Richards stood his ground, read where Summerville was going and blocked a dangerous shot.
27 min: Johnson bends one just wide! Fair play to the Palace winger, who has endured a torrid opening 27 minutes, but undeterred he takes responsibility on a counter-attack, cutting inside and curling a shot just a yard wide. Hermansen was struggling to get there and was lucky that Mavropanos got a little deflection on the strike – one that was not picked up by the referee or even the players.
25 min: Re that West Ham away kit, Ian Sargeant gets in touch:
“Ecru (rather than beige) apparently – though a lighter shade than that mid-90s number worn by Mark Bowen and co back in the day. Can’t shift it at the club shop. Down to £28 if you really like it, Michael.”
23 min: Another West Ham free-kick, this time Munoz leaving Summerville in a heap. The Colombian escapes a booking.
21 min: A poor couple of minutes for Johnson! He is booked for a clear trip on Diouf! Hooked before half-time?
Golden chance for Johnson!
19 min: Speaking of people that haven’t scored for their new clubs, here comes Palace’s Brennan Johnson. An inswinging cross comes in from the left, Disasi mis-reads his header and Johnson has a free header: six yards out, middle of the goal, completely unmarked. The Palace man inexplicably heads it five yards wide! The bloke can’t buy a goal!
17 min: Pablo has shown some lovely touches. He’s got a very languid style, like a Diet Berbatov, and his flicked assist for Castellanos against Wolves was outrageous. Before people lose my minds at that Berbatov, I should mention that he has yet to score since signing for West Ham in January, so there is that …
15 min: Neat interchange of passing from West Ham – Summerville to Fernandes to Pablo to Castellanos – with the latter lashing a wild shot over the bar when he had Bowen to his right.
13 min: Ominously for a side that have conceded 15 times from corners this season (comfortably the worst record record in the Premier League), West Ham are having to deal with long throws pumped into their penalty box from Richards, who hauls the ball a full 40 yards, from about mid-way into the Hammers’ half! The visitors survive, this time.
10 min: West Ham have shaded the first 10 minutes. Fernandes has shown some neat touches in midfield and the full backs (Diouf and Walker-Peters) are pushing very high. It’s actually a very attacking team with those full-backs and arguably only Soucek as a defensively-minded midfielder.
8 min: Stand Larsen darts to the near post and connects with a low cross but can only divert it wide.
6 min: After a slow start in a Palace shirt, Canvot has excellent since coming into the side after the departure of Guehi. And the French teenager has made a fine start here, dispossessing Summerville in full flight and a couple of minutes later, bringing the ball out of defence and skipping past Bowen, earning a foul.
4 min: Quite like this West Ham away kit, an all-beige number. Reminds me of their away kit in 1996-97.
2 min: Walker-Peters gets to the byline sends in a brilliant cross for West Ham but Munoz wins his header at the back post. Good work from the West Ham man, who seems to have displaced Wan-Bissaka as the first-choice right-back.
Peeeeeeeeep!
‘Faithless – Insomnia’ blares around Selhurst Park (lead singer Maxi Jazz was a supporter and even an associate director of the club) and we are ready to go!
Adam Wharton is said to be injured. Palace fans will feel a bit better about that with the rumours of a potential summer departure floating about.
Wolves’ relegation will be confirmed this evening if West Ham avoid defeat this evening. Who from the Wolves squad will get a move back to the Premier League, do we reckon?
Mateus Mané will have some suitors but I imagine Wolves will want to keep hold of him for the Championship. He will not be on big wages and Wolves will have their parachute payments. Who else? João Gomes? Hwang Hee-chan? Angel Gomes?
Maxence Lacroix speaks to Sky Sports about Palace balancing the demands of Premier League/European football.
I think we learned a lot with the games. There are a lot of minutes. This is like a family, everyone wants to fight for each other. At first it was difficult and we are on our way and really happy where we are. The mood is totally different. We don’t have injuries – apart from Eddie [Nketiah], we are sad for him.
West Ham’s Konstantinos Mavropanos also speaks:
We just have to focus on ourselves [in the relegation battle]. We have worked so hard the last couple of months to be in this position. We just want to keep the momentum. We have shown togetherness defensively.
An email from Eric Peterson:
“Tanking is too strong a word, but Spurs sure didn’t prioritise their league matches down the stretch last season, saving their strongest lineups for the Europa League. Manchester United pulled the same stunt, and they paid the price by losing the Europa League final to Tottenham and missing out on Europe entirely this season. I fully expect Palace to do the same thing the rest of this season. And I can’t say I blame them. They’re not a reasonable relegation risk, and leapfrogging a half-dozen teams to get to Europe through the final table is nowhere near as likely as just winning the Europa Conference and making the Europa League that way.”
This is a strong Palace side, but certainly not the best XI. Ismaïla Sarr scored crucial goals in both legs against Fiorentina but is back on the bench tonight. Adam Wharton has been heavily linked with Liverpool this week and it is a worry for Palace fans that he is not in the squad at all today, with no mention of an injury.
It is not a surprise to see West Ham unchanged from the 4-0 win over Wolves. I have put 4-2-2-2 as the formation, with Soucek and Fernandes sitting deeper and Bowen and Summerville almost as two wide No 10s, but they could easily morph into a more conventional 4-4-2, or a 4-4-1-1 with Pablo dropping deep.
Team news!
Crystal Palace (3-4-2-1): Henderson; Richards, Lacroix, Canvot; Munoz, Lerma, Hughes, Mitchell; Johnson, Pino; Strand Larsen.
Subs: Benitez, Sarr, Mateta, Clyne, Kamada, Sosa, Riad, Devenny, Cardines.
West Ham (4-2-2-2): Hermansen; Walker-Peters, Disasi, Mavropanos, Diouf; Soucek, Fernandes; Bowen, Summerville; Pablo, Castellanos.
Subs: Areola, Wilson, Traore, Todibo, Magassa, Wan-Bissaka, Scarles, Potts, Kante.
Preamble
What was a bad weekend for Tottenham Hotspur could get a whole lot worse at Selhurst Park. Spurs could and probably should have beaten Brighton to leapfrog West Ham in the relegation but a late, late equaliser for the south-coast side – compounded by wins for Leeds and Nottingham Forest – have left Tottenham staring down the barrel with just five games to go.
West Ham – with a game in hand – will stay 17th with a victory this evening but would put themselves four points clear of Spurs in 18th, an important margin given the east Londoners’ inferior goal difference. The Hammers are on something of a tear recently, revitalised under Nuno Espírito Santo, and since 17 January have the fifth best points tally in the Premier League. That they are still in the mire shows how far they had previously fallen.
Nuno deserved a lot of credit, and new signings have made a huge impact. Taty Castellanos and Pablo have given West Ham a focal point up top, while Axel Disasi and Konstantinos Mavropanos have formed an excellent partnership at the back – so much so that the Greek is even now being linked with a move to Borussia Dortmund, quite the transformation.
A trip to Palace is not normally easy, but this is a good time to face the Eagles, who (marooned in mid-table) have nothing to play for in the Premier League and are focused on Europe after reaching the Conference League semi-finals on Thursday. And following that aggregate victory at Fiorentina, Oliver Glasner allowed his players to celebrate by painting Florence red and blue. Spurs fans look away now: a crunch European tie, added travel and a potential hangover on Friday was not the ideal way to prepare for tonight’s game.
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Selhurst Park under the lights is (nearly) always a cracker. Good luck to both teams.
Kick-off: 8pm BST.
