Five things we loved from our win over Ipswich

First-team

8 hours ago

Crystal Palace ground out an important 1-0 win over Ipswich Town on Saturday – and going into a break in fixtures, there was plenty to celebrate about the result…

Into the break with a win

It’s an old cliché of course – but a win is a win, and three Premier League points are three Premier League points, however they arrive.

It wasn’t always free-flowing football at Selhurst Park on Saturday, but heading into a spell of no competitive matches for three weeks, doing so off the back of a positive result dispels any frustration which may otherwise have lingered.

Quite the opposite now, in fact – as Palace go into their mid-season break, and then the March international window, off the back of four wins in a row; six in seven; and nine in 11 in all competitions.

39 points is Palace’s highest-ever return after 28 Premier League matches (the club’s previous best being 36 in 2019/20).

Indeed, since the eighth match round of the season, only three other Premier League teams (Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Arsenal) have picked up more points than Oliver Glasner’s side.

Sarr man – at both ends

The ultimately moment of quality from Saturday's game came from the boot of Ismaïla Sarr in the 82nd minute.

The Senegal international kickstarted the move with a pass to Daichi Kamada, collecting the return pass before going up a gear to burst into the box – and then clipping the ball over the advancing goalkeeper.

“With the first similar situation, Eddie [Nketiah] tried to pass next to the keeper – the keeper saved it really well,” Glasner later recalled. “Second with Dani Muñoz, the same situation, he tried to pass. The keeper was very quick on the grass and saved the ball.

“Ismaila was the third guy, third time, one against one against the keeper. And then he took the right decision and chipped the ball, because the keeper was, again, very quick on the grass.”

Match Action: Crystal Palace 1-0 Ipswich Town

But the game might have panned out differently had the Senegal international not been in the right place at the right time 20 minutes prior.

When Jaden Philogene attempted to stab a loose ball home from an Ipswich corner, our Sarr man was in situ to clear it off the line – and ultimately make the difference.

The flag-kicking tribute

We have to give this moment its own line – a really touching thought from Sarr, amidst all the adrenaline of scoring the match-winning goal, to reenact the celebration of his injured teammate.

It was one of those moments which really highlighted not just how much this Palace team are enjoying playing football at the moment – but more so enjoying playing it together.

Defensive diligence

A ninth clean sheet of the season is certainly worth celebrating. Up against a physical and high-intensity Ipswich side, the defensive unit as a whole performed superbly.

There was some particularly impressive shot-stopping on Saturday from goalkeeper Dean Henderson, who faced eight shots on target, and produced several important punches from set-pieces.

Selhurst in the sunshine

In the build-up to kick-off there were – ironically enough – newspaper inches dedicated to the statistic that, this weekend, large parts of England were warmer than Marbella – the Eagles’ destination for a mid-season training camp.

Weather forecasts aside, however, there’s simply something glorious about SE25 in the sunshine, the conditions befitting the sunny outlook the result – and our form of late – places upon the rest of the season.

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