‘Better than Raya’ – Goalkeepers shine as Crystal Palace and Man Utd play to goalless draw at Selhurst Park | OneFootball

Gianni Brera, possibly the most influential thinker in Italian postwar football, famously suggested that the “perfect” game always ends 0-0. However, even he wouldn’t go as far as to describe the events at Selhurst Park as anything of the sort.

His reasoning was simple, if not without logic: two perfectly balanced teams would cancel each other out. Crystal Palace, who blew Man Utd off the park in their last meeting, were often second best as the Red Devils controlled large swathes of the match.

Still without a Premier League win this season, Palace was indebted to Dean Henderson, who made seven saves. This is the most registered by an Eagles goalkeeper in a Premier League match without conceding since Vicente Guaita against Newcastle in January 2023 (7).

Three of those — to deny Alejandro Garnacho, Matthijs de Ligt, and Lisandro Martínez — came within the opening 15 minutes, and each was impressive. His opposite number, André Onana, was often a spectator in the first half, but when called upon, the Cameroonian shot-stopper came to the fore.

The former Ajax and Inter ‘keeper spectacularly made a double save to stop Eddie Nketiah’s shot from outside the box, and then denied substitute Ismaïla Sarr’s close-range effort on the rebound. “People were talking about [David] Raya’s double save this week. I think this is even better! The second one is incredible,” Alan Smith enthused on Sky Sports commentary.

Onana and company have now kept four clean sheets in their last six Premier League games, one more than they managed in their previous 24 matches beforehand (three between December 2023-May 2024). But worryingly, they’ve only won two of their last eight Premier League games against opponents starting the day in the bottom half of the table (four draws and two losses), with those victories both coming against promoted sides: 4-2 v Sheffield United in April last season and 3-0 v Southampton earlier this month.

However, going back to Brera, it’s worth noting teams they’ve faced more than 10 times in the Premier League, Man Utd have drawn 0-0 in a higher percentage of their games versus Crystal Palace than against any other opponent in the competition (16% – 5/31), with this also being the fourth goalless draw Manchester United have played out under Erik ten Hag in the Premier League (81 games), and first since drawing 0-0 with Liverpool in December 2023.

Crystal Palace vs Man Utd player ratings

We used Twenty3 Sport’s Discovery Tool to assign each player a percentage score. Each player’s statistics are compared to the average output of their respective position. We also weighted each statistic from 1 to 5 to highlight the most important aspects of their respective position style, with five being the most important.

Crystal Palace

Man Utd

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