Crystal Palace extended Wolverhampton Wanderers’ winless run in the Premier League with a 1-0 victory on Saturday as midfielder Eberechi Eze provided a moment of magic in a dull game with a fine second-half strike.
Palace’s first win in four league matches moved it up to 13th in the standings with 26 points, three points clear of Wolves which is 14th after eight games without a victory.
“It’s been a long time coming, it’s not been going for us but today we’re grateful to win,” Eze told BBC Sport .
“We always put in the work and try to do the best we can but it hasn’t come off at times. It’s been a difficult run but we’ve put it right today... We want to be looking up the table, getting points on the board and climbing up as fast as we can.”
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The first half was drab with no shots on target and Michy Batshuayi had the best opportunity to score when Nathaniel Clyne’s effort was deflected into his path, but the Belgian striker went for power and fired his shot over the crossbar.
Palace went ahead on the hour mark when Eze broke the deadlock by shimmying to escape the clutches of Leander Dendoncker before firing a low left-footed strike past Wolves goalkeeper Rui Patricio.
Wilfried Zaha nearly doubled the lead when Batshuayi released him on a counter-attack and the Ivorian did well to cut inside and shoot under pressure but he his effort cannoned off the crossbar.
Wolves rarely had a sight of Palace’s goal and manager Nuno Espirito Santo said his team did not live up to its usual standards.
“We didn’t recover the ball like we should do,” he said. “We have a lot of concerns - creativity, speed and breaking the lines. We must be much faster when we recover the ball. We were always a threat on the counter-attack, now we make too many passes.”
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