Tottenham Hotspur failed to extend their lead at the top of the Premier League table as they were held to a 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park on Sunday afternoon.
Harry Kane gave the league leaders the lead midway through the first-half as Vicente Guatia failed to deal with his effort from long range. Jeffrey Schlupp drew the Eagles later however as he capitalised on a bit of penalty box pinball to fire home, and in the end it was enough to see Roy Hodgson’s man claim a hard-fought point.
Here are three things we learned from Selhurst Park:
Kane does what Kane does best
Much has been made of Kane’s ability to create goals this season and justifiably so with the forward having racked up 13 assists in all competitions already. However, his goalscoring has also remained consistent throughout the campaign, too.
With his goal at Selhurst Park, he made it 15 strikes for the season, becoming just the third player in the top five European leagues to reach that milestone – the other two being Robert Lewandowski and Erling Haaland. That statistic alone continues to highlight how remains in the elite category of finishers even when he is attempting to tee up teammates.
Kane now sits at odds of 7/2 with Betfair to win the Premier League Golden Boot come the end of the campaign.
Guatia hero and zero?
Whilst Kane proved to be the main inspiration on the goalscoring front for Spurs in the capital, he will feel slightly fortunate having being given a huge helping hand from Guaita for the goal. Lining up from 25 yards, it looked like the forward’s shot was set to be an easy collect for the Spaniard. However, he appeared to put all of his weight on one side, making it difficult to change direction and stop the swerving effort.
He will of course take criticism for that but had it not been for the stopper, Palace may not have actually been able to claim a point. Before the opening goal, he kept Spurs at bay with a series of really impressive saves, the best being an instinctive glove to deny Tanguy Ndombele on the spin. He was also alive to a header from Kane, whilst also producing a fantastic close range save to halt a goal-bound effort from the England striker late on. His saves then got even more impressive in stoppage time by somehow clawing away an Eric Dier that was arrowing towards the top corner.
His otherwise impressive performance really should not be hampered by one solitary mistake.
Palace make pressure pay
So often this season, Spurs have produced fantastic defensive showings, claiming victories on the counter-attack. That great organisation and discipline is very well indicated in the four consecutive Premier League clean sheets the team had kept prior to the match at Selhurst Park.
However, Roy Hodgson’s Crystal Palace put all of their effort into finding an equalising goal, having 16 shots throughout the match. The pressure finally paid off late on, with Eberiche Eze’s free-kick causing havoc in the Spurs’ penalty area, eventually being tapped home by Schlupp.
Credit really has to go to Palace for electing to attack the Tottenham goal in the search of an equaliser. They may have also handed the blueprints to the rest of the Premier League in how to halt Mourinho’s Tottenham – pile on the pressure.
Match Report
Crystal Palace: Guatia (7); van Aanholt (6), Cahill (7), Kouyate (6), Clyne (6); Milivojevic (6) (Riedewald (6), 73′), McArthur (7); Schlupp (7), Eze (7) (Townsend (N/A), 89′), Zaha (6); Benteke (6).
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris (7); Reguilon (6) (Davies (N/A), 84′), Dier (7), Alderweireld (6), Aurier (6); Sissoko (6), Ndombele (7) (Lo Celso (6), 67′), Hojbjerg (6); Bergwijn (6) (Alli (N/A), 85′), Son (6), Kane (7).
Goals: Kane (23′), Schlupp (81′)
Referee: Kevin Friend
Yellow Cards: Milivojevic (20′), Sissoko (38′)
Red Cards: N/A
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