Crystal Palace have continued their good start the season after securing a place in the third round of the League Cup after a 4-1 victory against Shrewsbury Town at Selhurst Park.
Alan Pardew approached this clash with a completely changed line-up from the side that played Aston Villa on the weekend, with the exception of Joel Ward and Wilfried Zaha. This gave Socceroos captain Mile Jedinak his first run on start for the season and a debut for Patrick Bamford.
The game started in a surprising fashion for Palace, with Shrewsbury taking the lead in the ninth minute. Ryan Woods found his way through the Eagles defence and passed the ball to Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro for the French striker to the find the overlapping run from Matt Tootle, who finished past Wayne Hennessey in the Palace goal.
The completely new Eagles starting side had difficulty developing any sort of rhythm and tried to hit the League One opposition on the counter, with neither able to create any good chances.
Palace found the chance to level with five minutes remaining in the first-half, when Zaha and Bamford quickly played the ball between the each other, before the Ivorian was brought down by Abu Ogogo inside the 18-yard area. Dwaight Gayle stepped up to take the penalty and calmly converted into the bottom-left corner past Jayson Leutwiler.
Pardew’s team came back out much better in the second-half, with some more attacking skill shown by Bamford and Gayle creating some good chances for their side, unfortunate not to be converted.
Both sides failed to break the deadlock, forcing the tie into extra time where the better fitness level of Crystal Palace really did show, able to assert some real dominance on their opposition and it only took four minutes to finally take the lead. Glenn Murray broke into the box, where he was brought down by Mat Sadler for another penalty.
Their passage through to the next round was secured when they scored again moments later, Gayle turning provider and sending Chung-young Lee through, who then side stepped the goalkeeper to score his first goal in Palace colours. A fourth was added to finish the game with seven minutes remaining. Pape Souare used his speed to break down the wing and put a good cross into the danger area that was headed in by Zaha.
Palace will have concerns though, as not only was this a rather unimpressive game but there is also have possible team concerns with Jedinak, Gayle and Zaha coming-off due to potential injuries. At the press conference after the game Pardew gave an update on the players conditions.
“I’m a little bit worried about the skipper (Jedinak), he might have done a hamstring, but we’ll have to wait and see,” he said
“Dwight Gayle came off just as a precaution because he was cramping up, and Wilfried Zaha the same.”
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With a clash against Chelsea on the weekend they will need to have Zaha fully fit and ready, his pace will be key to puting pressure on the Chelsea defence. It is also bad luck for Jedina,k who was struggling to break into the Eagles’ starting XI and now could miss weeks through injury.
The win sets up a third round clash with Championship side Charlton Athletic, again at Selhurst Park, on the week commencing on the 21st of September.
Pardew probably made the right call in resting most of his starting XI given that they are going into a tough clash with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, because he would not have wanted to risk injuries to key players. But even this cautious approach could not stop the cloud rolling over his team, and fans will hope their confident beginning to 2015-16 is not derailed by players getting hurt.
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