It was another miserable outing for Crystal Palace on Tuesday as a strike from Justin Kluivert handed Bournemouth a 1-0 win.
The Eagles now have just a single victory in five matches under Oliver Glasner, which came against a Burnley side who had ten men for most of the 3-0 win.
In fairness to the Austrian, he desperately needs the likes of Michael Olise and Matheus Franca to return, as we have little pace on the break as things stand.
In a more positive light, one Crystal Palace player actually made club history during defeat at the Vitality Stadium…
Crystal Palace history is made
Well, it was Joel Ward who made Crystal Palace history on Tuesday night.
After being named in the starting XI for a 22nd time this season, the 34-year-old became the first player in Crystal Palace’s history to amass 300 Premier League appearances for the Eagles.
You can see a list of our top Premier League appearance makers below.
- Joel Ward (300)
- Wilfried Zaha (291)
- James McArthur (240)
- Jeffrey Schlupp (201)
- Jordan Ayew (187)
- Luka Milivojevic (183)
- Andros Townsend (168)
- Scott Dann (164)
- Christian Benteke (162)
- Jason Puncheon (153)
It was not exactly a memorable game for Ward to make his 300th Premier League appearance – to say the least.
The Crystal Palace No.2 was shoehorned into a makeshift back three which also included Jefferson Lerma – in the absence of Marc Guehi and Chris Richards.
Ward looked fairly comfortable alongside Joachim Andersen and the Colombia international, although the game became a little scrappier after Glasner strangely moved David Ozoh into the backline instead of Lerma.
Joel Ward did his bit
The lack of attacking threat is causing Crystal Palace real problems at the moment, although Ward did well at the back up against a number of tricky forwards, such as Antoine Semenyo.
WhoScored shows that the £400,000 man made more clearances than any other Crystal Palace player against Bournemouth with seven, while he also recorded three tackles and one interception.
In an ideal world, we wouldn’t still be having to use Ward as a centre-back in 2024 after over a decade of being in the Premier League, although injuries and poor squad planning are not his fault.
Whenever the man from Emsworth is called upon, he very rarely lets Crystal Palace down.
Hopefully, Steve Parish has a testimonial planned for Ward at some point in the near future – it is the very least he deserves.
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