Declan – maybe unlucky with the penalty award
Mark Noble was left moaning about “two massive decisions going against” us in his post match assessment of the game.
And he was joined by manager Manuel Pellegrini who claimed the penalty award against Declan Rice was harsh as he was simply involved in an instinctive reaction to a situation.
He didn’t claim exactly how but the defensive midfielder certainly had his arm above his head and with the new rules in place he probably didn’t have a chance of getting away with it.
It was a bitterly disappointing defeat and certainly not the best way for the Irons to lose their unbeaten run of seven games.
Probably a draw would have been a fairer result on the balance of play but it’s hard to argue against VAR although the skipper made a brave attempt.
Commenting immediately after the game can often lead to slightly awry judgements and maybe when Nobes sees the match back he will realise that.
He told the BBC: “In the first half their goalkeeper made two saves he didn’t know about. Manu [Lanzini] had a great chance, Felipe [Anderson] had a great chance.
“Everything today went against us. I’m not sure about the handball [which led to Palace’s penalty] and the offside decision for their second goal was millimetres.
“We had two or three really good moves in the first half. Palace have some good players but we should definitely have scored in the first half with the chances that we had.
“We scored a really good goal, but we had two massive decisions go against us.”
We definitely didn’t deserve to lose the game. A draw the least we deserved. A strange and frustrating afternoon really,,We had chances we maybe should have put away. We looked most dangerous when the ball went wide but didn’t do enough to get the 3pts..That said we are well placed in 7th.