Manchester United’s dominating performance against Crystal Palace secured a 2-0 win at Old Trafford early this morning.
Things started poorly for the Eagles after Matteo Darmian put in a cross that looked like it should have been easily dealt with. Palace defender Damien Delaney made a mess of the clearance and ended up sending the ball past Julian Speroni.
With the Red Devils failing to take advantage of some good opportunities, it once again fell to Darmian to provide. After Palace cleared a Daley Blind corner, the Italian beat Bakary Sako to the ball and beat Speroni with a strike off the post.
United will be looking to continue this form into their FA Cup Semi-Final where they face Everton, while Crystal Palace take part in the other semi, facing off against Watford.
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The Eagles started the game on the back foot, having made seven changes to the side that drew with Arsenal. Some of these were due to injuries sustained by key players, such as Scott Dann and Yannick Bolasie, meaning that Adrian Mariappa was making his first start in six months, while going forward there was a reliance on Wilfried Zaha.
When a key component in Bolasie is taken out of the side Alan Pardew’s men were always going to struggle, because that was the issue during their poor start to the calendar year. It was not the performance of Zaha that let them down, however, it was the rest of the forward options that were lacking.
Sako was, on more than one occasion, caught being too selfish. When in attacking position he decided to take on long range efforts that went wide, rather than trying to play in an open teammate in a better position. Another disappointment was the performance of Emmanuel Adebayor, who failed to provide any shot that troubled David De Gea in the United goal.
He was not alone in that issue because the Eagles ended the game only creating five chances and having no shots on target, which is an issue that will need to be rectified going into the FA Cup Semi-Final.
United fail to take full advantage
The Red Devils were completely dominant in the game and easily found their way through the Palace defence. On multiple occasions Anthony Martial was able to use his speed to take advantage of Martin Kelly and get into position to put balls into the box.
They were often left with no one in the dangerous areas to get on the end of the hard work from the wide men though. Even when Delaney scored the own goal there was little pressure on the defender, with only one United player in the box at the time.
Speroni gave Palace a chance
In his first start in the Premier League this season the custodian really stood up for Palace, while the defence in front of him really struggled. There was little that the Argentine could do to stop either goal, but he prevented the score line from becoming more one-sided.
The best came when Marcus Rashford was played in by Juan Mata, passing across to Martial who took a shot that was saved by Speroni before their 18-year-old striker tried to follow-up. Despite the Palace goalkeeper being on the ground after the first save, he recovered to prevent the youngster’s second attempt.
Will United gain Champions League Qualification?
The win was one that was needed to keep the Red Devils in the contest for third position, now sitting two points behind rivals Manchester City. They do have a difficult next two games though, against league leaders Leicester City at home and then West Ham away, then traveling to Norwich who are in the relegation battle and finishing the season at home to Bournemouth.
United will likely have to get maximum points in at least three of those games if they want to have any chance of getting into the Champions League.
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