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Newcastle’s final standing of 10th last season was perhaps the most fittingly placed in Premier League history. Barring a few anomalies, Rafa Benitez’s side beat who they were supposed to beat, drew with who they were supposed to draw with and lost against who they were supposed to lose against.
Eight of their 12 wins came versus teams that finished lower than them in the table, all but one of their draws were points shared with sides that finished outside the top six and 11 of their 18 defeats were at the hands of clubs that finished above them – with four of the remaining seven losses away from home. Not only in terms of overall points but also who they could and couldn’t beat, Newcastle ended the campaign exactly where they deserved to be.
Before a ball was kicked this season, Crystal Palace and Wolves will have both looked at tenth place as a conquerable benchmark to try and exceed. It’s not often a newly-promoted side aim so high but it’s also not often a team arrives in the Premier League with the same level of financial backing, organisation, top-class quality and familiarity as the Black Country outfit.
Similarly, having made eleventh last season despite failing to score a goal in their first seven games, going a few shades higher after securing the long-term future of talisman Wilfried Zaha should be well within Palace’s capabilities.
Unfortunately for Roy Hodgson and Nuno Espirito Santo, though, their teams lack Newcastle’s ability to perform almost exactly as the Premier League table dictates, sharing the same fundamental flaw. As results last weekend proved, Palace drawing with Manchester United at Old Trafford and Wolves losing 2-0 at home to a Huddersfield side that began the day in bottom place, both teams are, simply put, good against the good teams, bad against the bad teams, and ugly against the ugly teams.
Just take a look at the statistics so far this season: despite there being perhaps the biggest gulf in quality ever seen in the Premier League between the Big Six and the rest of the division, Palace have scored just 0.03 goals per game more and conceded only 0.47 goals per game less against teams outside the top flight’s sextet elite. Wolves, in fact, have scored 0.48 goals per game more against Big Six opposition, having thus far drawn three of their four encounters with them.
There’s still some disparity in terms of points gained, but both teams have always been in the game whenever they’ve faced clubs of the highest calibre and looked a lot more convincing than they have against teams of similar or lesser quality to their own. Crystal Palace, for example, lost to Liverpool with ten men by the same scoreline as Southampton’s 2-0 win at Selhurst Park, while Wolves drew with Arsenal and lost 3-2 to Tottenham before being sunk by Huddersfield last Sunday.
After a draw with Manchester City back in August, captain Vincent Kompany even predicted as much, declaring “I’m confident that they will take points off our competitors.”
“They don’t behave or play like a Championship team that has just been promoted. I’m confident that they will take points off our competitors. They are the typical type of team who is geared up to get big scalps because they have enough quality to play themselves out of situations when they are under pressure.”
Much of that stems from the nature of both sides and how their greatest strengths are on the counter-attack. Wolves’ 3-4-3 formation is perfectly set up to hit quality teams on the break, especially those employing 4-3-3 systems. Likewise, Palace are at their undoubted best when Zaha and Andros Townsend are given room to rip through the pitch as quickly as possible.
The Premier League’s top teams all push up to try and dominate possession, naturally allowing the space behind that the Eagles’ dynamic wide men thrive in.
But when it comes to breaking down teams that fear the offensive quality of both sides, chiefly those near or below them in the table, Palace and Wolves inevitably struggle. Against Brighton, the Molineux outfit took 60% possession but lost 1-0 at the Amex Stadium. Likewise, in a 2-1 loss to Bournemouth last month, Palace dominated the ball away from home but couldn’t translate that into a superior tally of goals.
For both sides to stay up this season, let alone finish tenth or higher, they’ll need to arrest that problem in the coming weeks. Palace’s next four fixtures are against Burnley, Brighton, West Ham and Leicester before a trip to the Etihad Stadium, and while Wolves’ schedule is a little more jumbled up – their coming five games including Cardiff, Newcastle, Chelsea and Liverpool – there are only 12 encounters with the Big Six each season.
Even if these dangerous opponents to the Premier League’s elite won all of them, that would still only be 36 points – short of the usual benchmark for survival. In any case, Palace and Wolves are now five and four games into that quota respectively.
But the capacity to adapt and find a solution is where the similarities start to end, Wolves and Palace suddenly staring down slightly different paths. The intrinsic issue Hodgson faces at Palace is the absence of a No.10, someone who can actually slice a defence open when the Eagles are allowed time on the ball.
Perhaps that can be summer signing Max Meyer in the long-run, although he still seems a little short of Premier League sharpness, but it’s already obvious how significant the losses of Yohan Cabaye and Ruben Loftus-Cheek have been to this team.
Cheikhou Kouyate, James McArthur and Luka Milivojevic put in a fantastic shift at Old Trafford, but they lack the same level of drive and creativity. It seems to be a problem that can only really be solved through the transfer market – but fans have a right to wonder why it wasn’t anticipated back in the summer.
For Wolves though, the issue seems to be far more self-inflicting, largely born from Santo’s tactical stubbornness. In Ruben Neves and Joao Moutinho, he has midfielders capable of running games when given the ball in the way Palace’s can’t, yet the structure of the team has its own shortcomings. While it gives a great platform to counter-attack, it also leaves Moutinho and Neves dangerously outnumbered in midfield.
That’s not so much of an issue when they’re only trying to keep the engine room tight before quickly distributing to runners further forward, but as Huddersfield proved on Sunday it makes them incredibly easy to pick off when teams set up specifically to defend against it. The Terriers encircled the Portuguese duo and continuously punished them.
But Santo’s reaction was to make like-for-like changes in personnel rather than modify the shape of his team; the longer the Wolves gaffer’s stubbornness continues, the more Wolves will continue to squander easily obtainable points against lesser sides. For Palace though, the January transfer window can’t come soon enough.
Check out the video below to see how Brazil fans reacted to being asked how Cristiano Ronaldo would perform for them in a hilarious prank by Playmaker FC…
