One of the pitfalls of being an attractive, top half Premier League team is that TV companies are constantly messing up the schedule to give everybody the opportunity to watch us, so it felt slightly unnatural to have a game kick off at 3pm on a Saturday.

West Ham continued their strong away form and as impressive as they were, we essentially gave them the points when Dwight Gayle showed his inexperience through two completely unnecessary yellow cards.

Although the second booking was debatable, sliding in from behind on a player going back towards his own goal was needless and fatal, as it cost us the game.

After his first booking, Gayle chased down a through ball, which Adrián shielded out of play, and there was clearly a heated exchange between the two, which seemed to get the striker fired up.

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As soon as that happened, I turned to my brother and said, “We need to take him off at half time or he’s gonna get sent off.”

Pardew may well have been thinking the same thing, but didn’t have the opportunity to act on it as Gayle was dismissed just a few minutes before the break, leaving us to try and defend a point for the second half.

As frustrating as it is, these things happen in football and Gayle will learn from it and improve as a result.

It’s rare to see a Pardew side forced to sit back and soak up pressure, and we very nearly escaped with what would have been just our second league draw since he took over, but West Ham’s persistence in attack eventually paid off as they broke through late on.

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Dimitri Payet has been their standout player this year, and although he played well, Manuel Lanzini controlled the game and was a class above everyone else on the pitch.

Both Palace and West Ham have been somewhat overachieving so far this season, and the same could be said of Leicester, who we travel to this weekend.

Considering our away form and their attacking mentality, it will be a thoroughly entertaining game for the neutral, with plenty of space for both sides to exploit.

Hopefully Connor Wickham will be back as we’ve missed a real presence up top recently, but the key to beating Leicester is going to be whether or not we can keep Jamie Vardy quiet.

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I’ve never been a big fan of Vardy and when he was called up for the England squad last year I was the first to say that he’s overrated and undeserving of a spot.

So far this season he’s been on fire and it’s been really difficult to continually justify that opinion, and he’s ever so slowly winning me round.

But every average player hits a bit of form every now and then, even Grant Holt once scored 15 Premier League goals for Norwich so enjoy it while it lasts, Jamie.

Once high-flying Leicester are out the way, we get to continue our cup run, with a trip to league leaders Manchester City.

To be fair, they’ve been pretty goal shy recently, with their summer signings underperforming, so it should be a walk in the park!

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