Palace Victory

To begin with, our travel of choice was train. With the sub-par navigation skills of someone that wishes to be unnamed (it rhymes with Shamble), we were left to wander about the train platforms, not really knowing where to go. After we finally found the right train with a bit of assistance, the anticipation was humming. I expected Arsenal to take home the win, while the other two thought Crystal Palace would. We got to Selhurst Park, the home of Crystal Palace with about 2 hours until kick off. Unfortunately, there weren't too many option as to what we could have for dinner, so we had to settle for the small burger shop next to the stadium. Once we had geared up for the game with a program and a £5 scarf, we entered the small park and located our seats. Crystal Palace came in with high hopes, a few games had passed since they had beaten league leaders, Chelsea, and now facing Arsenal, who are performing below their high standards, dropping from 3rd to 5th and continually dropping points to lower teams. The first half was dominated by the home team, scoring in the 17th minute with a lovely team goal, scrambled across the goal line by Andros Townsend. The morale of the Arsenal team was continually lowered, by both their performance and the chants by the home fans, noteably the "elites" (elites in soccer are the super fans, who are enclosed in their own area and have security constantly on watch) with Arsenal having multiple corners directly in front of their seating bay. At half time, with a stunning performance by Mamadou Sakho, Wilfreid Zaha and Yohan Cabaye, the score stood at 1-0. In the second half, the counter-attacking skill of Crystal Palace's midfield and the pace of Zaha was too much for Arsenal, conceding in the 63rd, conceding a fantastic volley from the edge of the box by Yohan Cabeye, leaving the Arsenal fans stunned and silent, shocked that a team just avoiding relegation was proving to be such a problem for their defence, prompting the home fans to start singing "We're staying up!". Only a few minutes later, Arsenal had conceded a penalty, from which they conceded yet another goal, to the excitement of the fans. The domination by the home side continued late into the game, with chances appearing frequently, while ArsenL continued to underperform. As the game drew to a close, it became clear that Crystal Palace were the victors in a fairly one sided match. The crowd cheered and the players came over and thanked the fans before heading back down the tunnel. Our trip home was a lot smoother than our way there, catching some almost empty trains back where we came to finish off a long night.