Bournemouth will feel they should have taken all three points after a 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace in the Boxing Day clash at the Vitality Stadium overnight.
Palace were forced into two changes coming about through injury, with Yannick Bolaise, who has been one of the better players for the side this season and Connor Wickham replaced by Fraizer Campbell and Jordon Mutch, respectively. With this in mind, the Eagles came away from the game with zero shots on goal over the 90 minutes.
Bournemouth’s best chance to break the deadlock came when Eunan O’Kane took a shot from outside the box after some good build-up play around the box. The attempt forced a sharp save from Wayne Hennessey to get the ball over the bar.
Palace will be looking to improve when they return home to face Swansea on Monday, while Eddie Howe’s men travel to the Emirates to face Arsenal.
Bournemouth fail to take their chances
The Cherries had some really good chances to get more out of the game, taking 10 shots with three of those finding their way on goal. There would have been some more chances, but the forward line lead by former-Eagle Glen Murray was just too slow to get on the end of some passes into space.
Dan Gosling came close, but chose the wrong option on a couple of occasions. Once he tried to play in Murray when he had a clear shot on goal, although the pass was unexpected by the striker and he was unable to generate the power to get the ball past Hennessey. With the second chance he decided to look for contact to win a penalty from Pape Souare, which the referee Michael Oliver correctly waved away when he had a decent angle on goal and no one in front of him.
Bournemouth were given so much space to build up because Palace were relying on their counter-attacking style, which allowed the Cherries to have the majority of the possession in their attacking-half and were only pressured as they moved closer to the penalty area.
Good away record continues
Alan Pardew’s squad did show off their defensive skill in allowing Bournemouth to attack them until they made the edge of the box and then did well to close them down in the dangerous space. Bournemouth did appear to be getting the better of the early out wide through Adam Smith and Charlie Daniels, however, after halftime they rectified the issues.
Their away record is second only to Arsenal in 2015 picking, up 36 pointson the road and this performance in defence showed why they are so good. They are able to invite pressure on themselves knowing that the central-defensive combination of Scott Dann and Damien Delaney will throw themselves in front of the ball to keep the score level, which they did on multiple occasions in this game. It helped to keep the total goals conceded away from home at the lowest in the league for the Eagles, with only seven conceded on the road.
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Zaha vs Arter
This moment threatened to really get nasty with some tackles coming in from Harry Arter on Wilfried Zaha in the first-half, the second of which resulted in a flashpoint of sorts between the two sides. Arter came flying in with a slide tackle which Zaha did not like and lashed out, which then forced the intervention of referee Oliver who handled the situation well and tried to calm both parties. The two came together as they walked of for halftime, although Zaha still looked annoyed at the earlier tackle and refused to shake hands with his opponent. Bournemouth coach Eddie Howe made the right decision at the break to take off Arter, to avoid any further issues that could have seen his side go down to 10 men.
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