Crystal Palace at the Break

a team full of one-sided players just a bit away from the relegation level

We are going to make reports over hopefully all 20 Premier League teams leading up to the return of the best league in the world on Boxing Day. Get everyone all educated, it helps me to do these to understand what teams do and what their players do, hope it does for you also.

Tale of the Tape

Shot wise and progression wise they look a bit close to mid-table but the xG and danger zone completion ratio signify a team that could be looking back at the relegation spots. Efficiency and converting the broad metrics into the cutting edge eludes Palace.

Shot quality is obviously the big problem for Palace, as their low volume danger touch attack is coupled with awful sub .08 xg/shot.

Field Maps

A map combining shot production with progression efficiency vs the average PL team.

Defensive weakness right through the middle and on their left side leads to a total lack of control and dominance in the middle of the pitch.

Pass Clusters

A lot of long balls down the left is what you see when you watch a Palace match, that’s Wilf Zaha territory.

Palace essentially never cross the ball, they have played the fewest crosses in the league. They are also quite bad at converting crosses into shots.

Defensively Palace basically allow the normal kinds of passes at the normal distribution.

Attackers

The striker position is a big problem for Palace. Mateta is good at turning touches into shots, but very bad at receiving those touches and non-existent at progression, arguably the worst at interplay of any non Chris Wood striker in the league.

Zaha is the real attacking hub here, he doesn’t take on players as much as he used to but is still somewhat a threat to carry. He probably would carry a much bigger threat with a true partner, and not the one-dimensional Mateta and the mediocre Edouard.

Midfielders

Doucoure was a top-tier transfer, that probably has pushed Palace comfortably above relegation battle. Without him it is worrying where they would be. He wins duels, takes the ball away, doesn’t lose the ball and the team progresses at a rate leaps and bounds beyond the rest of the mids when he touches the ball. Plus the efficiency is top-notch.

Schlupp has a whiff of the Jack Cork about him where you just wonder what he does on the pitch, can’t really find anything in the stats.

Olise and Eze are basically attackers, not doing defensive work but returning quality and extremely similar production. Watching a game they are truly hard to tell apart.

Milivojevic sadly looks over the hill now, slowing down the attacking game to a crawl.

Ayew is basically an aerial dueller who can win and earn some receiving but his ball at feet play is a huge negative and bad enough he should not be getting serious minutes in the Premier League.

Defenders

A big problem in the Palace attack is he lack of work the fullbacks do offensively. Ward is one of the biggest zeroes there is offensively, and opponents pour through his side against the ball. The problem is Clyne defensively does no ball winning, is terrible in duels and his offensive capabilities are just mediocre, meaning that the Palace right is quite bad.

The left is Zaha’s side, meaning Mitchell has more options to work with, and more defensive work to do. Mitchell is much more aggressive with the ball, but inefficient as he loses it a ton.

The simple fact the fullbacks are so withdrawn (62+ yards start on average) to show up in this category shows how much work Palace must do to get ball forward. They are the first team that fullbacks didn’t show up in the midfield.

Guehi’s passing efficiency was top-notch but I like Andersen as the better current defender due to his duel win rate and ability to get involved in shot builds.

Goalie

Nondescript goalie.

Pass combos

Most progression

Most shot buildups

The Rundown

Palace as a club are sort of caught between, a guy with a short blanket trying to cover his whole body. The midfield can get overrun when they play offensive players like Eze and Olise together, but if they play Ayew and Schlupp they totally lack threat up top as the CF and Zaha alone leaves the attack massively lacking.

Doucoure is maybe the only two-way player on the entire squad and certainly a prospect higher up clubs will be watching, Tyrick Mitchell maybe can develop into one in the future but is probably short in both right now.

Getting Olise and Eze to do actual defensive work would be ideal, right now Palace lack the attack and they are the only ones with the potential to get it going: they are legitimate attacking options and could be played alongside Zaha and a striker if they actually defend.

Buying a real complete right back who can move the ball and defend could help Palace get out of their own half more and get more bodies in attack and keep the pressure off their back like. Right now they play with too many guys who can’t contribute on one side of the ball.

Rest of the Season

45% to finish top 10, 5% to be relegated. Those numbers are too low on the relegation threat, this is a team that’s not better than a Saints or a Wolves, just a bit of bad luck and they are in danger.