Palace’s 1-1 weekend draw in a tense and scrappy clash with arch-rivals Brighton provided many key talking points.
Whilst Palace’s failure to record a single shot beyond Wilfried Zaha’s penalty was a cause for creative concern, Palace’s defensive acumen served them well. They were unlucky to concede a goal in the 90th minute via a considerable deflection from Alexis Mac Allister’s long-range effort.
However, one Palace player’s role was especially salient for buoying the performance of the team.
Jairo Riedewald made a rare start, putting in a commendable display that exhibited his nimbleness, strong ball control and passing abilities. Hodgson’s rare faith in the young Dutchman was seemingly rewarded with a well-rounded overall midfield display. A pass success rate of 95.8 percent was the highest of any player to feature in the draw, which serves as a testament to Riedewald’s composure, vision, and progressive role as a midfield dynamo.
The typically peripheral player was unfortunate not to cap his performance with a fine assist. A perfectly weighted, line-splitting ball found its way to the feet of loanee Michy Batshuayi, who powered through on goal and thundered a strike that found its way past Matthew Ryan in the roof of the net. Unfortunately for both players, Batshuayi was adjudged by VAR to have been fractionally offside.
Riedewald, a 2017 signing in the short-lived Frank de Boer experiment, could be on track to enjoy something of a red-and-blue renaissance under Roy Hodgson. Riedewald had failed to make a Premier League start since he featured in a 3-0 defeat for Leicester City, and had generally served a more peripheral role in Hodgson’s squad.
However, given the injury sustained by James McCarthy on international duty, it is hard to envisage Riedewald failing to get a serious look in ahead of a promising fixture against Fulham.
