Rob Seltzer appeared on the latest edition of the Exiled Eagles podcast and during the show, he spent some time talking about Crystal Palace’s tactics.
The Eagles have taken six points from their first four games of the 2020/21 Premier League season, with the South London club winning two and losing two of their first four league games this term.
While reflecting on Palace’s start to the season during this recent edition of the Exiled Eagles podcast, Seltzer criticised the tactics that Roy Hodgson’s side have utilised so far this term. The podcaster was particularly critical of how the Eagles played in their most recent league game against Chelsea and he shared some concern that this is how they are set to play for the season.
He said: “The thing that makes me nervous is we’ve changed system but haven’t changed tactics. We’ve got players now that can go out and attack – we don’t seem to want to try and do that at all.
“We played [more] differently against Chelsea than anyone else, maybe because we thought they were better than [us], we didn’t press them high, we didn’t try and attack, it just makes me nervous that that’s going to be the tactic for the rest of the year and we’re going to sit through another load of this dross.
“What I am asking is to show some intent. If you watch that game, there were times – multiple occasions – where both teams, us with the ball and then Chelsea certainly, they were literally walking about passing the ball to each other.
“I’m just saying there were times where we did nothing, we did absolutely nothing and we were told to do nothing. It just makes me nervous that that’s what we’re going to see for the rest of the year.
“We’ve got Brighton in a couple of weeks. Now, I’m not saying we should attack, attack, attack, but we’ve got to show something more. We can’t just do that to Brighton. We can’t do that against Sheffield United, against Burnley, which we’ve done for the past two years. I just want to see us take it onto the next level a little bit.
“That’s just why I’m nervous and that’s why I’m very much in the ‘Roy Out’ camp.”
Have you been happy with Palace's tactics this season?
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TIF Thoughts…
As per WhoScored, Palace have got the lowest average percentage of possession (36.7%) and the lowest average pass success percentage (67.4%) of any Premier League side this term.
This would indicate that so far this season, Hodgson’s side haven’t put much emphasis on retaining possession, while they have also taken the third-lowest number of shots per game (7.8) of any team in the Premier League so far this term, which might suggest that they haven’t been very attacking.
However, as per FBref, Palace have applied the second-highest number of pressures (660) of any Premier League side this season and they have been successful in the joint-sixth-highest number of pressures (163) of any Premier League side this season, which would suggest that in the majority of their games, they have been quite active off the ball, so Seltzer may not have to worry about them doing “absolutely nothing” off the ball in most of their games.
It may be fair to say that their recent losses to Everton, who have won all four of their league games this season, and Chelsea, who finished fourth in the Premier League last season and have got the highest net transfer spend of any Premier League side so far this season, were always likely to be difficult tests and may not give us the best indication of whether or not the Eagles’ tactics are good enough so it will be interesting to see if Palace play in a similar way to how they have played so far this season in their upcoming games and whether or not this style proves to be effective in those fixtures.