Having spent some time last weekend watching Crystal Palace taking on Brentford and in particular being drawn to and writing about the key battlegrounds, it was clear that the Palace left-sided defence endured a challenging time against The Bees’ left footed right winger Brian Mbuemo. The Cameroon international gave Marc Guehi a torrid time and actually performed a carbon copy of a ‘Jarrod Bowen special’ – receiving the ball, running at Guehi then cutting inside to score with his left foot.
Even with front line defenders Guehi and Anderson, Palace struggled to cope with The Bees attacking strength and went down to a 1-2 loss. The news covered by Simon earlier that Palace’s defence is to be weakened against West Ham United by Joachim Anderson being absent (pending a move to Fulham ) will be music to our captain’s ears. Bowen was subdued last week against Villa, looking as if he needed the run-out, playing catch-up with his team mates having had a very limited pre-season. He was substituted well before the end of the game presumably as he ran out of steam.
Opportunity knocks for the Hammers captain against the Eagles
What could be better, then, for the Irons’ top scorer from last season to get his 24/5 campaign goal scoring up and running. A less than full strength Palace defence, (more in my report later tonight), a subdued Bowen first performance last weekend and a desire no doubt to get on the score sheet as new ‘Hammers’ Captain’ and get Lopegetui’s first points on the board.
Remember also the Kudus/ Bowen wing swap option which has been deployed last season: I expect the Hammers to cause serious problems down the flanks for what will probably be a makeshift Palace defence: Bowen and Kudus on the scoresheet – sounds perfect.
Down at the other end, a lot depends on the availability of Aaron Wan Bissaka: If he and Todibo start I could see the Irons’ defence coping well with Eze who played in a kind of ‘inside left/left wing hybrid’ role last week.
Watch out for the ‘falling over’ in the box, though – Coufal would worry me with the odd-mistimed tackle likely to have me hiding behind the sofa in fear of a Palace Penalty. I still think going forward, we have enough to get three points: It will be interesting to see if Lopetegui integrates more of our defensive additions into the starting eleven.
I was surprised by the team selection last week. I’m hoping that with an extra week of training more of the new players will start against Palace.
Lots of quality but lots of changes too, it needs to come together which it hadn’t done last week. I’m confident that it will do what I’m not confident on is how quickly.
Don’t underestimate Palace.Always a hard team to play against.
And Palace have the opportunity to ‘pile pressure on’ us too. Play the same starting 11 as last week and they beat us.