Crystal Palace set records for all the wrong reasons

Crystal Palace set the record of being the only team across Europe’s top 20 divisions to have not scored a goal pic: Seb Powell

Crystal Palace’s disastrous goalless start to the 2017/18 Premier League campaign is the worst start to a season in football league history.

The south London club’s abysmal start has seen them break a number of records, however, not the sort of records the Eagles fans were hoping for.

Football is a game of numbers and the South London club have become a statisticians dream during the 2017/18 campaign; two managers, seven games, seven defeats and 17 goals conceded. However, the most troubling for Palace fans, no goals.

Season ticket holder, Henry Louch, spoke to EastLondonLines, echoing the mood of the majority of the Palace supporters: “The atmosphere is pretty irate, the owner needs to understand that big signings don’t guarantee survival, the team is so important to the local area and at the end of the day it’s just not good enough. People pay good money to come and watch and we’ve had the worst start in the history of the league, it’s a joke.”

The club promised the fans a new ethos of football, and the introduction of Frank de Boer was a clearly unsuccessful venture. Former England boss Roy Hodgson was brought in to try and salvage the terrible start, however, the team’s form hasn’t improved and the Eagles now boast the record of being the only team across Europe’s top 20 divisions to have not scored a goal.

Palace are the only side in a staggering list of 316 teams, made up from nations such as Spain, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Israel and many more to have not scored so far. They are the first team in 129 years of the Football League to be defeated in their first seven games without scoring.

 

Manager Hodgson admitted that his side have been out of their depth against recent opposition, whilst the Palace fan page, Five Year Plan, saw the funny side of the team’s lack of goals in their online goal of the month competition, asking fans to vote in a poll for their favourite goal so far for August and September, of which there were none…

https://twitter.com/FYPFanzine/status/914411505575170048

Palace have now played over 600 minutes of Premier League football without registering a goal and things aren’t looking up when it comes to their fixtures. Up next is a tough trip to champions and London rivals Chelsea on Saturday 14th October. Manager Hodgson has seen improvements in his squad however, but notes how their next fixture is a difficult one: “The messages being put across are being grasped by the players. We now have Chelsea and it doesn’t get any easier.”

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