I thought Palace played well, and especially in the first half began to get worried that AngeBall had been worked out. The width of the 3 midfielders made it hard to go through or round with areas squeezed out. We def missed Udogie's involvement and no shade on Ben but we looked better with Royal there.
People are not talking about him so maybe it's just me but I thought that Will Hughes was fkn immense in that game. He may look like a bargain bin Santa but he really ran the Palace midfield and was so good in driving the team forward. I think with Bissouma having to be careful not to get a yellow and miss the Chelsea game it really gave Hughes the licence to be physical.
I'm pretty pissed off with Ayew's tackling, especially in the first half. I'm all for physical games as I think it makes the sport better, but he was far too often just going in on the back of player's legs. It was cynical and pathetic and the ref should have booked him earlier after it happened the 3rd time.
Disagree on the VAR tho. The angle of the ball when it comes off his chest (no arm at this point) is going diagonally to the right (from the goalside cam). When it gets to where his wrist is then it sharply changes direction to be going down and to the left. It also has a lot more spin on it. No idea how VAR didn't catch that quickly (btw clear and obvious in only for when VAR wants to intervene on a mistake / miss by the ref, not for checking things like this).
Remember that the pundits are there purely to draw attention. It's why you get ex players like Paul Merson and Steve Nicol wittering on about nonsense. They are being paid to have a bad take because bad takes get social media clicks.
And the more it is done the more others do it. I understand why you're tired.