Saturday, October 31, 2015

Crystal Palace 0-0 Manchester United: Eagles fail to take chances

Manchester United drew 0-0 for the second consecutive Barclays Premier League match as Louis van Gaal's men failed to find a route through a stern Crystal Palace defence at Selhurst Park.

Palace welcomed former United winger Wilfried Zaha back into their starting line-up, but he was outshone by Yannick Bolasie on the opposite flank. The Democratic Republic of Congo winger rattled the crossbar inside 10 minutes as Palace applied the early pressure.

United found their feet, but despite their dominance of possession created few chances, a Wayne Rooney free-kick that forced a routine save from Wayne Hennessey was their best effort of the first half.

Most of the chances after the break went Palace’s way but Yohan Cabaye, Scott Dann and Dwight Gayle were all unable to take them, leaving Palace winless in 13 Barclays Premier League clashes with United.

United made two changes in defence with Matteo Darmian replacing the injured Antonio Valencia and Daley Blind coming in for Phil Jones at centre-back.

Van Gaal's side looked shaky at the back in the opening stages and could have fallen behind in the 10th minute had David de Gea not got the slightest of touches on Bolasie's effort to turn it on to the bar.

De Gea came to United's rescue once more two minutes later, leaping up to palm over a header from Dann following Cabaye's corner.

The visitors eventually took control of possession, but struggled to build anything positive against a robust Palace team.

Hennessey was not tested until the 25th minute, when Rooney fired a 25-yard free-kick over the wall that the Palace goalkeeper was able to get across to and save.

The Welshman thwarted Rooney again six minutes later, rushing out to stop him from latching on to an incisive pass from Anthony Martial.

There were chances for Gayle and Ander Herrera before the interval, but neither player made strong enough contact with the ball to trouble the opposing keeper.

Goalscoring opportunities remained at a premium for the two sides during a scrappy start to the second half, with De Gea and Hennessey acting as spectators.

Although Palace grew into the match and controlled the ball, it took them until the 71st minute to carve out a decent opening.

Joel Ward's delivery from the right found Cabaye unmarked 10 yards out, but he was unable to steer his volley on target.

Dann looped a header wide before Gayle had a shot saved by De Gea in the 76th minute.

There were chances for both sides to steal three points late on, but Damien Delaney got a crucial block on a Martial shot before Bolasie headed over from a corner in stoppage time.

Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew"We should have won. It was an excellent performance from us - as good as we have been all year. United- and it doesn't happen very often - were probably fortunate to get a point. It was a shame we didn't win it but with the run we've been on we needed to take something, so the point was important for us. It was really disappointing after the League Cup defeat [at Manchester City]. It was a goal of ours to win that. The draw was awful and unfortunately we didn't put in our best performance. We got back to the real Crystal Palace today."

Manchester Untied manager Louis van Gaal"We did not keep the ball. That's a very important factor and because of that we didn't create too many chances. I have to say I can't complain about the result. There's a big concern [not scoring] but I already said that after the second match, especially against Middlesbrough [in the Capital One Cup] because we created many chances but did not finish.

"[Today] we didn't create so many chances so it's more difficult. When you don't keep the ball you can't create chances. We still had a big chance in the last minute of the first half for Herrera and you have to finish that."


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