A desperately unlucky result on Saturday saw a brilliant performance from Palace go unrewarded against Arsenal.

It was a game of tight margins: a penalty incorrectly awarded by the referee following a mistake by league debutant Pape Souare meant we were up against it from the start against a usually brilliant Arsenal side. Palace responded magnificently and had Arsenal on the ropes for the majority of the first half with Wilfried Zaha in fine form on the wing, Jason ‘the Baller’ Puncheon pulling the strings in the middle and a revitalised Fraizer Campbell leading the line impressively with a new-found sense of fight, endeavour and commitment.  

So it came as a surprise when we found ourselves 2-0 down on the stroke of half-time following yet another dubious goal and some shoddy goalkeeping by Julian Speroni. This has been the third time in five games where the Palace legend has failed to divert the ball wide of the goal and instead set it up on a plate for the opposition. Goals are like gold dust in this league for any side, and without such errors we could arguably be two points better off and in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.

It’s been a magical 10 years for Speroni at the club and his services to Crystal Palace are almost unrivalled in recent history. But there comes a time when Alan Pardew needs to look towards Premier League survival instead of sentimentality. His distribution has been something that has become notably more pedestrian this season and you can put your mortgage on seeing Pardew raise his hand aloft in disgust every game at the time it takes for the Argentinian to get rid of the ball.

More concerning, however, is the success of his distribution, our number one has the lowest success rate of distributions of any keeper in the league with just 42 percent. It isn’t even a case of calling on for Manos de Dios to be indefinitely dropped but rather to give him the threat. Wayne Hennessey has been more than capable of stepping in for Speroni in the cup this campaign and it was harsh of Pardew to opt for Speroni in the FA Cup defeat to Liverpool.

Speroni’s uncharacteristically inconsistent season could be due to a lack of rotation and even a sense of being too comfortable in the number one spot.  It could be argued staying in the Premier League is more important than ever considering the mind-boggling and quite frankly ridiculous television deal recently signed by BT and Sky. If it takes seeing Speroni sat on the bench for some periods of the remainder of the season then so be it.

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