Crystal Palace dealt Arsenal’s top four hopes a blow after a convincing 3-0 win at Selhurst Park on Monday night.
The result means former Arsenal skipper Patrick Vieira took four points off Mikel Arteta’s side this season.
Goals from Jean-Phillippe, Jordan Ayew and Wilfried Zaha, saw Palace continue their fine form.
Also Read: ‘I Can’t Promise Not To Make Mistakes Again’ –Uzoho Breaks Silence After Error Vs Black Stars
Arsenal are now in fifth place on 54 points, same points as North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur who occupy fourth spot.
The Gunners lost left-back Kieran Tierney to injury while Thomas Partey also went off with a knock.
Palace made their positive start count as they took the lead on 16 minutes as Mateta nodded the ball in past Aaron Ramsdale following Joachim Andersen’s header back across goal.
In the 24 minute Ayew doubled the lead, cutting inside and guiding Andersen’s excellent pass into the far corner.
And on 74 minutes Zaha put the game to bed after converting from the penalty spot following a foul on him by Martin Odegaard.
5 Comments
Ghana had 4 players in this encounter: Schlupp, Partey, Ayew and Nketiah.
The likes of Nketiah, Hudson-Odoi, and Brighton’s flying right wing-back Lamptey will likely come on board now that Ghana is in the world cup. Their chances with England are very limited. It will be hard to ignore an opportunity to play at the world cup if Ghana come calling.
If Nketiah and Hudson-Odoi join up with the Black Stars, along with forwards already in there like Afena-Gyan, the Ayew brothers, Issahaku and Painstil, all of a sudden, the Ghana attack begins to look quite formidable.
Interesting side note:
Every time the Ayews have clashed with Nigeria in football, they have come out victorious.
1) Papa Abedi beat Nigeria at the 1992 Afcon.
2) His son Andre beat Nigeria at the 2010 Afcon.
3) And now his other son Jordan has beaten Nigeria at the 2022 world cup qualifying playoff.
Strangely, Nigeria was supposedly the favourite every single time. But the Ayews don’t care about that. They still go ahead and put Nigeria down.
Hehehehe, perhaps next time we meet Ghana, the first thing we should check is if there is an Ayew in the line-up! If there is, then we know the encounter just got even tougher.
Hahahaha!
How are sure they will all play for Ghana? What can really attract them is quality of the team on ground, and how far they can go in the tournament. Players from Europe don’t just join for joining sake,They prefer to play in a team of “last four” in a world cup tournament.
@pompei am not too sure is about ayew brothers.
Many things are wrong with our team tactically.
Sometimes when rohr sticks with some players several times we seem to question his tactics. I know rohr stick with players like Collins, sheu semi ajayi, iwobi and always want to use this set of players ahead of others.
How poor it might be, did you know that rohr acheivemt in last six years is not that bad the way it was painted and booted out like that.
It law of sowing and reaping.
How can you change a coach overnight, change the philosophy of a team bring in amunike and expect things to just work out like that. Remember prior to afcon this team did not play any major friendly under egu.
We were only got carried away by those first three victories.
I believe rohr would have qualify for this world cup with or without ayew brothers.
We complain that simon was not doing well under but we can now see why rohr use to ask him to be plain defensive games a time.
One thing certian under egu, once opponent arebable to score first again se, they always end up losing the game.
We accept it we fumble, NFF gamble with sacking of rohr.
Before the play off, gahniasn team were much more in disarray but luckily they were able to get a good and tactically sound hand who studied egu philosophy well and outdone him.
Addo didn’t get the job by corruption, it was just by competent.
But egu stab rohr at back several times and he got what he deserved.
He took home base to a friendly rohr did not approve just to show yourself and to prove to gullible Nigerian that we don’t need rohr.
Rohr exit became heated up from that moment onwards.
But am happy now that is own career too is now in the mud.
I have long ponder over this your submission that Egu betrayed Rohr that’s the reason for his flop
If not in the past Egu have us good results what now coded his surden lack of tactics
He was once a good coach with the under 23 and even with the national team when he took us to the second position
I was joking, Yinkus.
My reference to the Ayew family was meant as comic relief.
Corruption and incompetence continues to hinder our progress.
Ghana only took advantage of our incompetence to beat us to the world cup ticket. Whenever we meet them, we underrate them and fail to prepare properly. And they make us pay for it.
If we get our house in order, we will start beating them more frequently.