Winning the first game of the seaon is a real confidence booster, especially to a club that is likely to be in the bottom half of the table for most of the season. Thomas Frank in his pre-match interview on Friday informed us that Ivan Toney was fit and eager to play on Sunday, so it was a surprise that when the teams were announced he wasn't in the squad. There must be transfer negotiations going on and he couldn't be risked in case he got injured. With our new CF Thiago out until the end of the year then Palace were probably a good team to play for the first game of the season and at home, for several reasons. They had lost Olise and not really made any big name signings, and we weren't playing any of the big boys nor a newly promoted team that had something to prove. Things nearly backfired for us after giving away an unecessary free-kick on the edge of our area that Eze took and his shot just went past the post. Then another Eze free-kick sees him fool everybody by shooting and not crossing and the ball goes in off a post. For some reason it was disallowed with the ref seeing some pushing on the edge of the box - it looked very soft to me. As he blew his whistle before the ball went in the net, then VAR could not be used - phew! Then almost immediately, in the 29th minute, we had a beautiful first-time passing movement from the edge of our box to the edge of theirs, Mbeumo cut in from the right and curled a great shot into the net. In the 42nd minute Schade had a good chance but curled his shot just wide of the post. They equalised in the 57th minute when a cross was headed back across goal and Pinnock unfortunately toe-poked the ball into his own net. Two minutes later they had another goal disallowed for offside. They then had several chances before we got our second and winning goal in the 76th minute. Damsgaard crossed from the right and Collins, on the turn, got a shot away that took a slight deflection off a defender that their keeper could only claw the ball away, but on to Wissa’s foot and the ball trickled over the line. Palace tried to grab an equaliser mainly through several attempts by Eze, but Flekken pulled off some good saves to deny him.
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