It's another win again for Alan Padew. The final whistle went and the supporters who had stuck around started to boo Sam Allardyce and his peculiar team.
Off he trudged. What else could he do? The early results that shielded him, and actually succeeded in turning some in his favour, seem to be long gone.
West Ham are six games without a win in all competitions and this was dire. The fact such a performance was played out at Upton Park, where they had lost only one of the past 11, will not have helped ease the feeling that matters are on the slide.
With Arsenal and Chelsea next on the agenda, it’s hard to see where the upturn will come for a manager who started this campaign with such a swagger.
Certainly, he cannot afford worse lapses in those games than West Ham managed here. Each of Palace’s three goals could be traced to bad defending.
That is not to deflect the credit due to Jason Puncheon, who made both of Glenn Murray’s goals and also delivered the cross for Scott Dann to make it 2-0. But West Ham’s marking goals two and three and Aaron Cresswell’s contribution to the opener cannot be understated.
When Murray got sent off for a second bookable offence, West Ham actually found some kind of a stride pattern. But there was a time during this season when Allardyce’s side did not need a numerical advantage to be competitive.
If there is a consolation, beyond Enner Valencia’s late goal, it is that they approached this fixture in the mood to attack.
The fact that Pardew did the same in pursuit of a third straight away win – the only time he has achieved this as a manager – might have meant an exciting game. The reality in the first half was a little more underwhelming, a calamitous sequence of mistakes, misses and more than one pass into touch. Murray’s goal, which came via a generous deflection from Cresswell, was a grubby summary of sorts for the whole half.
At least that 42nd-minute moment saved the half from total anonymity. Cresswell had threatened after 12 minutes when he collected Jason Puncheon’s misplaced pass and attempted to catch Julian Speroni on the run. His shot narrowly passed over the bar.
culled from dialy mail
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