Six things we loved from our super Sunday at Old Trafford

First-team

3 Feb 2025

Crystal Palace put in a performance to remember to record a 2-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford – and here are just six aspects of it we're still celebrating...

Ending the hoodoo

We’ve mentioned before that Palace’s current run of unbeaten away games – extended to eight matches with Sunday's win (five of them victories) – is a club-record in the Premier League and indeed the top-flight as a whole.

The club’s next two longest unbeaten away stretches in top-flight history stand at six matches: between May 1990 and October 1991, and December 1991 and February 1992.

On both occasions, the team which ended that run? Manchester United... at Old Trafford!

Third time was certainly the charm for Palace. If there were any kind of ‘hoodoo’ before, there certainly isn’t now.

Oliver Glasner’s Palace have now collected 16 points in away matches since the beginning of December – more than any other team – and have won three back-to-back Premier League away games for the first time since May 2019.

Old Trafford is ours

Let's face it: there's just something a little bit different for Palace about facing the Red Devils these days.

After failing to win any of our first 10 visits to Old Trafford in the Premier League, the Eagles have now won on English football’s biggest League ground – remarkably – in four of the last six seasons.

It was also only the second time we’ve won on back-to-back occasions there, and also a second consecutive season we have gone unbeaten in the league against Manchester United.

In that time, we haven’t conceded a goal, registering four successive clean sheets against the Red Devils – with Glasner presiding over two wins and a draw against Manchester United, our latest victory being his first-ever match at Old Trafford.

Defensive delight

Big games pivot on big moments – and Dean Henderson and Palace's defensive set-up around him certainly produced plenty of those in the North-West.

The tone was set by Chris Richards’ last-ditch tackle on Alejandro Garnacho inside five minutes, and the United States international led the way in multiple defensive statistics, recording five successful tackles and four aerial successful duels.

With Ruben Amorim’s hosts enjoying 67 percent possession throughout the match, it spoke volumes that Palace restricted them to just two shots on target – both saved, brilliantly, by Henderson in goal, with the ‘keeper also dealing with a succession of set-pieces.

Richards made 12 clearances in the game, Maxence Lacroix 11, and Marc Guéhi and Tyrick Mitchell seven each. Six other Palace players also made clearances.

Our latest clean sheet was a true team effort.

Ain’t no striker better

Jean-Philippe, ‘fantastique.’ You know the drill by now.

The Palace forward has been simply unstoppable in recent weeks, scoring his fifth and sixth Premier League goals in just five games since the turn of the calendar year and taking his tally to 10 Premier League goals for the season.

Indeed, since Glasner took charge in February of last year, JP has scored a remarkable 34 goals for club and country. Take out the Olympics for France, and that total stands at an impressive 27 strikes for Palace – only three of which have come from the penalty spot.

Quite some year – and there’re no signs of him slowing down.

Ebs’ & Adam’s impacts

Glasner had suggested in his pre-match press conference that Ebere Eze would not travel to Manchester for Sunday’s match after sustaining an injury, but confirmed ahead of kick-off that he was fit enough to feature from the bench.

And while the manager had mentioned that Adam Wharton had trained well this week, after returning from a long-term groin injury, few could have anticipated how big a role he'd play after being named in a matchday squad for the first time since then.

How Manchester United must have wished that neither had been on the pitch at Old Trafford.

Just moments after coming on near the hour mark, Eze registered a pre-assist with a wonderful set-piece delivery for Maxence Lacroix, whose looping header bounced off the crossbar for Mateta to convert.

Then, with the hosts pressing forward in search of an equaliser in the closing moments, Wharton also contributed to a goal, winning the ball to allow Ismaïla Sarr to play in Daniel Muñoz – who duly squared for Mateta to wrap up the game.

Welcome back, lads!

You

For the second year running, industrial action disrupting train services could have derailed Palace’s magnificent away support at Old Trafford.

Not a bit of it.

From the first whistle to the last, our travelling contingent were in superb voice to drown out the home fans at one of the country’s largest stadiums, and it was with continued gratitude that Palace players and coaches went and celebrated in front of the away end at full-time.

The kind of result which makes it all worth it.

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