Palace make it easy for Arsenal
The oddity of Arsenal’s win over Crystal Palace was that their performance was probably less impressive than the one that brought FA Cup defeat to Liverpool. Gabriel Martinelli’s two late goals may have handy longer-term consequences as a confidence boost. The low-key nature of their victory highlighted the level of aimlessness around their opponents, who turned up corporeally but never looked like being protagonists. Palace’s owners took the brunt of fans’ ire and there is little suggestion knives will be out for Roy Hodgson. But something needs to change. The best that can currently be said for Palace is that the table will probably show three inferior teams – or at least three with a smaller points tally – at the end of the season. That does not bode well. Drift has a habit of accelerating rapidly into decline and the questions reverberating around Palace’s corridors of power will centre on how their fortunes can be reversed. Nick Ames
