Oliver Glasner may not be bothered by breaking records, but his Crystal Palace team are more than happy to oblige regardless.
A 4-1 victory over Aston Villa on Tuesday night was only their third home win of the season, but it marked the ninth consecutive Premier League game in which they have scored.
This is only the second time in the Premier League they have done so, previously having a run of 11 between January and March 2019.
Palace have failed to score in only one of their past 16 Premier League games — a goalless draw with Bournemouth in December.
In the win over Villa, they recorded their highest expected goals (xG) total (3.8) in a home match since a 2-2 draw with Bournemouth in December 2017 (4.13). It is the only time from seven attempts they have beaten Villa on a Tuesday night — with one goal from those previous six attempts.
They have 37 points after 27 Premier League games — their best return at this stage of the season and a complete contrast given they had recorded their worst-ever start to a top-flight campaign.
Glasner’s often repeated desire is for efficiency. They are finding that and doing so consistently.
Much of this recent success comes down to their goalscoring. An ability nurtured in a considered way, goals that just creep up on opposition teams and appear seemingly out of nowhere at the end of a move as opposed to a result of outstanding individual skill or flair. Glasner’s team is not lacking in technique but it is more functional than the teams which boasted Wilfried Zaha and Michael Olise, or Yannick Bolasie before them.
That might ordinarily be a criticism or a problem. It has been in the past, in particular under Roy Hodgson. But Glasner is a manager who has been consistent in his belief that better days will arrive, that goals will flow and that it doesn’t matter who, how, where, when or why, so long as they do. And they have.
Ismaila Sarr has six for the season, adding two here, including a clever volley from Daniel Munoz’s cross. Jean-Philippe Mateta has 12, of which eight have come in this calendar year — the joint most alongside Liverpool’s Mo Salah. Eddie Nketiah finally scored his first league goal for the club he joined in the summer.
Glasner is not a magician, but it will require some convincing to prove that Adam Wharton is not either. In his first start since being forced off against the same opposition in October’s 2-1 Carabao Cup victory at Villa Park he was instrumental in almost everything Palace did well in attack and was heavily involved in three of the four goals.
The temptation might therefore be to suggest his return is why they are thriving in their goals, but he has scarcely featured in this nine game goalscoring run. Only once since their return to the Premier League in 2013 have they scored more goals than their 35 after 27 games (37 in 2021-22). That was Patrick Vieira’s first season in charge, and the wave of optimism that came over Palace is apparent now.
Yet Palace tend to take time to feel their way into games, just as they did with the season as a whole. They are at their best on the counter but that has been difficult when teams sit in against them at Selhurst Park in particular. Wharton’s return should give them what is required to break through stubborn defensive lines and potentially improve that home form.
They are no longer a team which looks to individuals to make a goalscoring difference, instead, despite a relative lack of goals being shared among the squad, they are producing what seem on the face of it to be more considered, well-thought-out goals that come from passages of play.
There is still room for Sarr or Mateta to race in behind, and for Eberechi Eze to take aim from the edge of the box, but the profile of their goals seems to have changed, just as the profile of their No 10s has. The quality of their goals is also no less than it has been previously. Still, though, Eze’s delightful flick to Daichi Kamada in the build up to their fourth goal was a reminder that flair remains in this team.
The focus has understandably centred on Palace’s clean sheets given their four in a row away from home, but that means their scoring record has gone almost unnoticed.
Of the 35 goals, 15 have come from set pieces, with no side having more (Villa also have 15) and, at 45 per cent, only Everton have a greater proportion from set pieces than Palace (43 per cent).
If not conceding is the foundation of their success then it is at the other end of the pitch where they will find themselves with a chance to match the ambition of improving their league position in a tight division. Continue to score at this rate, combine it with those clean sheets and the winning formula will propel them up the table.
It is more complicated than that in practice, but for all the thinking that Palace are hard to score against, that is really only true away from home.
Their consistency lies in being difficult to defend against wherever they play. It is that which will determine how their season ultimately plays out.
(Top photo: Sebastian Frej/MB Media/Getty Images)
