SAN FRANCISCO, December 06, (THEWILL) –Â Ivorian forward Wilfred Zaha did not need to but he underlined his importance to Crystal Palace as they took advantage of their one-man advantage to claim their first full points in three games with a rout at West Brom.
The mercurial Zaha missed Palace’s previous two matches, which both ended in defeat, after testing positive for COVID-19. He wasted no time finding his feet at The Hawthorns with a typically lively attacking display that included two goals and an assist.
His low cross forced right midfielder Darnell Furlong to divert the ball into his own net and give the visitors the lead. Then, his whipped finish into the far corner restored the advantage after Conor Gallagher’s low, driven equaliser.
Before Zaha scored came the incident that will be one of the talking points of the tie and which completely altered the complexion of the game: the red card to central attacking midfielder Matheus Pereira.
Even after multiple replays, it remained unclear, whether the Baggies player’s boot making contact with Patrick van Aanholt’s midriff while he was on the ground was intentional. But, referee Paul Tierney had no doubt after viewing the incident on the pitch-side monitor.
Before the red card, Albion had been the better side with momentum behind them after Gallagher’s leveller, which came shortly after Furlong had gone close to making amends for his own goal with a header that came back off the bar.
With the red card, all they could do was hold on. But, doing that for almost an hour with 10 men proved impossible, and Zaha was instrumental to sparking a Palace goal-fest.
Palace forward Christian Benteke headed the first of his own brace from a Van Aanholt cross just four minutes after his strike-partner’s fine finish.
On hand to tap in from close range in the the 68th minute was Zaha again following a driving run into the box from Eberechi Eze. Then, Benteke added the icing with a lovely finish on the turn.
Palace have netted five away from home for the first time in a top-flight game and the victory lifts them to 11th in the table, three points off the top four. West Brom remain in the bottom three.
West Brom are away to Newcastle on Saturday for the next Premier League tie while Palace welcome Jose Mourinho’s fiery Tottenham to Selhurst Park the following day.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
