Crystal Palace ended a run of three Premier League games without a win with a comprehensive 2-0 victory over below-par Brentford.
A brilliant looping header from Jean-Philippe Mateta – the Frenchman’s eighth goal in all competitions this term – put the hosts in front, before the Bees were played at their own game when Nathan Collins headed Jefferson Lerma’s long throw into his own net.
Oliver Glasner’s Palace climb to seventh, only two points behind Bournemouth in second, as a result of their fourth win of the season.
How Palace halted Brentford’s recent charge
An uneventful first half-hour was a reminder of the first five Premier League meetings between these teams, which ended all square. But then Palace got on their way with a brilliant opener.
The lively Yeremy Pino floated a free-kick to the edge of the penalty area, which Lerma flicked onto the head of Mateta, whose connection left Caoimhin Kelleher rooted to the spot. It was Mateta’s 22nd goal in 28 home league starts under Glasner.
Mateta’s leapt to guide a looping header past Caoimhin Kelleher
Kelleher was rooted to the spot
It could have been two less than five minutes later, when Ismaila Sarr chested down a clearance and volleyed just wide of the right-hand post, but the one-goal advantage was sufficient for Palace at the break, particularly as their opponents did not hit a single shot on target.
Within five minutes of the restart, it was 2-0. Collins turned his head as he attempted to clear Lerma’s throw, but could only divert it into his own net. It should have been three just seconds later, but Sarr’s shot came back off the post.
Nathan Collins heads into his own net to give Crystal Palace a 2-0 lead against Brentford
Brentford had one real chance to pull a goal back, substitute Reiss Nelson forcing Dean Henderson to dive at full-stretch to his left but, in truth, they never looked like getting back into the game.
Glasner: We spent just 15 minutes of training on throw-ins!
Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner:
“To be honest, we didn’t have a lot of time to train.
“We played Wednesday evening at Liverpool, got home at three in the morning. Thursday was just recovery and yesterday we played 25 minutes on the pitch and then 15 minutes just defending throw-ins and attacking throw-ins because we knew that this would be a topic today.
“Credit to my assistants who prepared all the clips and how we defended it and also in the attack so that we could score from it.
“We spoke about it, that it could be a set-play battle and at the end, I think we won the set-play battle.”
Andrews: We didn’t hit the heights of recent weeks in Palace defeat
Brentford head coach Keith Andrews:
“I thought it was a tight game, clearly a game where set-pieces were very prevalent in how the result went. In terms of our performance, did we hit the heights of recent weeks individually and collectively? No. But having said that, I felt like there wasn’t a lot in the game.
“Going into this game, you know Crystal Palace are going to be very effective from set-pieces. You’ve got to earn the right against them, in general, and you’ve got to earn the right in regard to set-pieces as well.
“The first goal wasn’t one we’ll be happy with; first contact and second contact, you can’t quite allow that against a team of that physical nature.
“This week’s been good. We had a good trip up to Grimsby and a lot of the players that will be frustrated at lack of minutes played and played particularly well. I thought you could see that from the impact from the bench today.
“We’re building a squad, we’re building a competitive squad where we want to push each other, so we’ll dust ourselves down, fine-tune a few things, analyse what we could and should have done a little bit better as a group and move forward towards Newcastle.”
