By Daily Sports Nigeria on April 5, 2022

Arsenal's top-four hopes took a significant dent in a 3-0 defeat by Crystal Palace that leaves Tottenham in fourth place after the Premier League weekend.

The Gunners do have a game in hand on their north London rivals but this was an out-of-character performance from Mikel Arteta's side, as first-half goals from Jean-Philippe Mateta and Jordan Ayew and a second-half Wilfried Zaha penalty handed fantastic Palace just their second win over Arsenal at Selhurst Park since 1980.

The rearranged postponed derby between Spurs and Arsenal, to be shown live on Sky Sports on May 12, is shaping up to be a potentially-decisive encounter in the race for Champions League qualification.

Crystal Palace have now lost just one of their last 11 games in all competitions as former Gunners legend Patrick Vieira continues to do a fine job.

Arteta, who apologised to the fans for the performance, was asked post-match if perhaps one of the reasons for the defeat was the pressure being applied to them by Tottenham in the top-four race.

He replied: "No, the pressure has been there the last seven or eight weeks. Today we didn't perform it's as simple as that. We were second best in every department it's as simple as that. We have a game in hand still. In the nine games a lot will happen. We have to focus on ourselves."

Buoyed by three of their players - Conor Gallagher, Tyrick Mitchell and Marc Guehi - winning caps for England over the international break, Palace were aggressive from the first whistle. That desire to win the second balls forced the opening goal when Mateta headed home from close range after Joachim Andersen forced the ball across goal without knowing too much about it.

Buoyed by three of their players - Conor Gallagher, Tyrick Mitchell and Marc Guehi - winning caps for England over the international break, Palace were aggressive from the first whistle. That desire to win the second balls forced the opening goal when Mateta headed home from close range after Joachim Andersen forced the ball across goal without knowing too much about it.

Arsenal have not come back from a two-goal deficit at half-time to win in the Premier League in 14 years and Arteta withdrew the ineffective Tavares, starting in place of the injured Kieran Tierney, with Gabriel Martinelli called from the bench for the second half.

It took Arsenal 67 minutes to create a meaningful chance against a well-drilled Palace side as Martin Odegaard fired wide from just 10 yards out, but any hope of a comeback was dashed when Odegaard fouled Zaha in the penalty area.

The winger dusted himself down and fired home to seal the points.

Source Sky Sports

Posted April 5, 2022

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