English Premier League

Crystal Palace 1 – 1 Tottenham

The result sees Jose Mourinho’s side leapfrog into sixth place above Wolves, who lost at Chelsea. Tottenham secured their place in next season’s Europa League with a hard-fought draw at Crystal Palace.

Harry Kane opened the scoring for Spurs, dispatching a low finish into the bottom left corner after collecting Giovani lo Celso’s pass. However, Jeffrey Schlupp levelled for Palace with a close-range finish after some poor Tottenham marking at a corner.

It was no more than Roy Hodgson’s side deserved, as they ended a run of seven straight defeats. They matched their London rivals for endeavour and could have snatched all three points, with Scott Dann heading a late effort wide.

Palace need more goals

While this was a welcome point and performance from Palace, it also perfectly characterised their entire campaign. The Eagles may well have steered clear of the relegation battle but they ended the season with their lowest points tally since Hodgson took charge in September 2017.

That has largely been due to a lack of goals, with Palace having the second-worst scoring record in the top flight, after bottom club Norwich. It has not helped that the contributions of both Wilfried Zaha and Serbia midfielder Luka Milivojevic have dropped off significantly this term.

Both reached double figures in 2018-19 but have mustered just seven goals between them this time around. To underscore the point, Palace registered 13 efforts against Spurs, but just two were on target.

Dann and Jordan Ayew, should both have at least worked Hugo Lloris from close range on the left side of the Tottenham penalty area. And Hodgson, who has repeatedly stressed his desire to bolster his squad, now has around seven weeks to rectify the issue before the 2020-21 Premier League gets underway on 12 September.

Capital joy for Kane – the stats

  • Crystal Palace are unbeaten in their past five final-day Premier League games played at home (W4 D1).
  • Tottenham Hotspur registered just eight clean sheets in their 38 Premier League games in 2019-20, their lowest tally of shutouts in the competition since 2010-11 (also eight).
  • Crystal Palace have become just the eighth team to go through an entire Premier League season without scoring more than twice in a match and are the first side to do so without being relegated.
  • Tottenham have finished the Premier League campaign in the top six for the 11th consecutive season, after managing to do so just twice in their previous 17 seasons in the competition.
  • Only Andy Cole (nine), Les Ferdinand (nine) and Matt Le Tissier (eight) have scored more Premier League goals on the final day than Tottenham striker Harry Kane (seven in six final-day games).
  • Giovani lo Celso’s two Premier League assists for Tottenham have come in his past three appearances in the competition (28 games in total).
  • Tottenham striker Harry Kane netted his 31st goal in Premier League London derbies, with only three players managing more (Thierry Henry got 43, Teddy Sheringham and Frank Lampard each got 32).
  • Crystal Palace midfielder Jeffrey Schlupp has netted three goals in his past six Premier League appearances, as many as he managed in his previous 40 in the competition.

Source – BBC News

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