Palace v Arsenal, the team and the developing commentary

Previously about the game…

• Palace v Arsenal, the team and the developing commentary
• Palace v Arsenal: the team and the oddities
• Arsenal have only won once against Palace in the last seven. But…
• Crystal Palace v Arsenal – a history of the matches in seven videos…
• Crystal Palace v Arsenal: the injuries and the curious case of draws
• Crystal Palace v Arsenal; doom and gloom, tackles, fouls and yellow cards
• Crystal Palace v Arsenal: the home and away form shows AFC favourites

Which is a damn site more than you will find on Sky!

 

By Bulldog Drummond

Here’s the team

 

Ramsdale

Cedric White Gabriel Tavares

Thomas Xhaka

Saka Odegaard Smith Rowe

Lacazette

 

Bit of a rarity for me, sitting at home watching the game on Sky.  It’s now 7.25, so we have had 25 minutes of the programme and the amount of time devoted to Arsenal is about 10 seconds.  The rest of the programme has been about Manchester United and Tottenham Hots.

Which tells you pretty much all you need know about Sky’s coverage of the Premier League.

The fact that the predictions about the team were all wrong in all the cases we looked at before the teams were released shows that the knowledge level of everyone debating football is pretty poor.

No announcement that I have seen as to who is on the beach.  But AFC website tells us who the subs are …

Leno, Holding, Martinelli, Nketiah, Lokonga, Elneny, Swanson, Flores, Ogungbo.

Now 7.30 and it is still a programme about Manchester United.   I wonder, is there any other TV company that could actually bid to do programmes about the clubs that are playing in the match that they are going to cover?

Oh, 7.33pm they are talking about Tottenham Hots.   And Manchester Untidy.   And telling us how the Manchester United are doing.   Apart from the use of phases like “A little bit unique”

It is now 7.37pm and they are debating Kane.  Still bugger all about Arsenal.  Which is probably why Sky’s audience figures are going down and down and down  As far as I can work out, one minute about of the first 40 minutes of the programme was about Arsenal.

Imagine a world in which Sky TV programmes were actually titled in a way that described what was going to be shown.

“The more we learn, the closer we get” – an advert from Google on Sky.   That is truly weird.  The more I learn about the leadership of Russia the further apart from them I am driven.

And now they are talking about car racing.  Meanwhile Guardian is talking about the game “becoming a winner-takes-all rumble for a precious top-four place.”

Rooney has just given the opinion that Odegaard has gone really well.  “He’s surprised me to be honest” he said.  I’m really wondering why I am continuing with my Sky subscription.

And would you believe it Sky are employing Alan Smith on the commentary team – the man who was sacked by Arsenal for his negative comments about Arsenal players while he was employed by them as a writer.

No Pepe on the beach!  But a really eccentric local crowd – if a ball comes through the air to an AFC player the crowd scream for handball.

Alan Smith telling us that no one gets fouled more in the Premier League than Zaha.  And then Palace score a completely flukey lucky goal.  But to be fair the second Palace goal was a good one.  We’ve now got to stabilise and get one back before half time.  AFC certainly have more possession but for the moment cannot make it pay.

30 mins and Martinelli doing a little warm up as Smith Rowe is hauled to the ground not for the first time.

40 mins and it is starting to look like a different game, but it looks like there is something wrong with the whole structure of the team.  But we are coming back into things toward the end of the first half.