Yoane Wissa’s late equaliser cancelled out Wilfried Zaha’s stunning opener as Crystal Palace and Brentford shared the spoils in a London derby that ended 1-1.
It took until the second half for the deadlock to be broken but Zaha did so in style, cutting onto his right foot on the edge of the area and bending a beautiful strike into the top corner.
Palace looked set to hold out for all three points but Brentford would not be denied as Wissa met Vitaly Janelt’s cross in the box with just two minutes remaining and guided a header past Vicente Guaita to secure a draw.
The result was a fair reflection on an evenly matched contest in which possession was shared 50-50 and the Eagles only outshot the Bees by two (13 to 11).
Brentford boss Thomas Frank suggested he was looking at the positives despite failing to win.
He said: “I think it was a brilliant game of football, in many ways. I think we edged it in the first half without being really dominant.
“Zaha then scored an unbelievable goal. What a goal — it’s touch, move, boom!
“A point away in the Premier League is so hard to get in every game but then we had those two big chances.
“If you look at the game, I’m very pleased with many things. We have that never-say-die attitude, that’s the fourth time now that we’ve come back [this season]
“We’ll take the point but I’d have rather had three. I think if you look at the performances overall [this season], I think we could have maybe had 10 points.”
Palace manager Patrick Vieira, however, was less than impressed with what he saw from his men.
He said: “It wasn’t really pretty from our side. We nearly lost the game at the end, so I’m happy with the point. Maybe they deserve it a bit more than us today.
“Today was about trying to win the game and play well, and we didn’t do it. We lost a lot of energy against [Manchester] City and it was difficult physically. At the end of the game we looked tired with a lack of energy. It became really difficult for us.
“I think we had a tough pre-season. That’s never going to change from us. There are a lot of details we need to improve if we want to win football matches.”
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Did you know?
Palace have won just one of the last five Premier League games in which they opened the scoring (two draws, two defeats), after winning nine and losing none of the 15 before that.
Since their return to the top flight in 2013-14, the Eagles have seen 123 of their matches goalless at half-time, more than any other side.
Zaha, on his 250th Premier League start for Palace, has now scored 13 goals in 20 appearances in the division in 2022, as many as he managed in his previous 45.
The Ivory Coast forward has now netted six of Palace’s last seven home league strikes.
Four of Wissa’s five away Premier League goals have come in his last eight games on the road after just one away effort in his previous 11 in the competition.
Source: Livescore
