Alex Pewter takes a look at the key aspects of yet another frustrating Palace result.
Pragmatism vs Frustration
In breaking with the usual tone of the post-match takeaways, it isn't easy to be purely analytical in a game where the emotions ran so high and low in a second-half of football.
Despite the number of years Palace has been in the Premier League, the era of Pulis, Allardyce, and Hodgson has ended. Their rugged brand of football alongside passionate home support defined Palace's place in the Premier League.
This summer's vast turnover in coaching and playing staff has meant that the club is back at "Year One" of an entirely new project. Transfers, good and bad, are a footnote in annual accounts long since filed. The wins, the losses and the league finishes may be worth confining to the past.
Watching a Palace team dominate yet another Premier League at Selhurst Park as a possession football team is undoubtedly a new experience, or at least doing it this consistently. But when the team fails to win, it can seem like another side of the same coin.
Frustration is a part of being a football fan. Everyone is desperate to see a substandard team put away without needing them to go down to ten men. The general refereeing and VAR stole a moment of euphoria for a home-support desperate for a win to kick-start the season, having seen two wins thrown away in the dying seconds already in recent games.
If this is Year One of a new era, maybe the most pragmatic fan would take staying up by a point before continuing the rebuild next summer. But where is the fun in that?
Anyway, on to the analysis:
The Midfield Lacked an X-Factor
As a counter-pressing unit, the pairing of James McArthur and Conor Gallagher exemplify what Patrick Vieira wants to do with his team. Both goals against Arsenal forced by turnovers showed what can be achieved on the counter, but playing at home as favourites is an entirely different story.
With possession just shy of 80% in the first half, the ball moved fluidly from side to side, but as the probing of Newcastle went on, there didn't seem to be enough chances created through the middle.
In the latest Route to Goal, we mentioned that Palace failed to succeed against back-three/back-five defences. Newcastle, content to sit deep and allow Palace as much possession as they wanted, came to take a point and succeeded in that goal.
The second half became a different story as the team pushed on urgently, but the opening 45 minutes felt like a wasted opportunity from Patrick Vieira's side. Having racked up 337 completed passes and 14 crosses, it resulted in only five shots, one of which hit the target.
Marc Guéhi's heat map shows how high-up the pitch the central defenders could get without the threat of being countered, almost playing as central midfielders based on their positioning.
Source: SofaScore
The central midfield ahead of them, despite that support, didn't appear capable of finding the necessary breakthrough. By design, the back-five defence looks to nullify the threat out wide by giving a natural double team on wingers. But that overcorrection is more likely to leave a softer middle, one to take advantage of beating.
McArthur, in particular, had a tidy performance. He amassed plenty of touches with over 90, and his passing was accurate enough at ~80% completion. The question was whether he could, or did enough, to break through a defence happy to allow all the sideways passes.
Possibly given the squad's strength compared to last year, the manager doesn't need to be as wedded to the same three central players in midfield for each opponent.
Taking a look at McArthur's role in this isolated game is far from criticising him as a player this season. Would Jeffrey Schlupp, who adds more of a direct dribbling threat and dynamism from a central position, be a threat to a deep defence?
Likewise, with Milivojević, who we have praised as a potentially crucial part of Palace's passing game, is he made obsolete against a team not willing to give space behind a full-back for him to play switched passes? Perhaps that means you could play Will Hughes as a deeper midfielder to change the balance once more, who is a more natural carrier of the ball.
Hindsight is always 20/20, but Vieira can still learn from a disappointing result as the season progresses.
VAR Tarnishes Benteke's Shine
Christian Benteke is back, he's dominant in the air, and he was the goal threat against Newcastle on Saturday. His redemption arc continues to delight Crystal Palace fans, who must still harbour some doubts after all the drought years.
All four "big chances" fell to Benteke as he rattled the woodwork on two occasions, scoring with his third header before and finding the side-netting with his left-footed effort. His outstanding vertical jump for the disallowed "winner" doesn't make it into the end of game statistics but was an effort worthy of capping one of Benteke's best performances in a long time.
Where Palace struggled to make an impact through the middle of the pitch, their crossing game, either from Olise or Mitchell, was the threat Newcastle struggled to defend.
His relationship with Odsonne Édouard is an interesting one, as the new arrival from Celtic plays as the inside-left forward with a different style to Wilfried Zaha. Less likely to be an out-and-out dribbler, Édouard is a good foil for Benteke, as he looks to play off him to create chances, making them both effective in their respective roles.
Édouard won't be credited for stepping over McArthur's pass in the second half, turning it into a slide rule through ball for Benteke. Where Patrick Vieira's strikers have historically had few touches on the ball, Benteke's 47 against Newcastle is a season-high, in part due to his new partnership with Édouard.
Benteke will want the two chances with his left foot but could have easily come away with a hattrick in the air. Detractors of VAR will say that it removes physicality from the game, that it is opaque where DRS is a transparent process in international cricket. In this case, it killed the thrill of a winning goal.
Corner Woes Continue
The previous two points have been about the attacking side because that is precisely what the game against Newcastle should have been. An attacking display, defeating a team struggling in the bottom three, proving in points rather than xG that the team is worthy of better results and a higher league position.
Palace's inability to defend corners is a continuing worry and isn't a new one. Whether in the first or second defensive phase, too many goals are coming from this Achilles heel. Defending corners appeared to be an issue in pre-season that could have been down to the tactical installation in other areas but has also become a fixture in the Premier League.
Worthy of breaking down in detail in the future, it isn't as though the players have changed so dramatically that there is an obvious shortcoming on paper. Christian Benteke has been an asset defending the near post for years. The goalkeeper is the same, and neither of the new centre backs is particularly undersized.
Therefore, it would appear that the issue is tactical, that the team isn't stopping the second and third ball around the area. If Crystal Palace needs to employ a specialist coach to help solve this, they ought to be scouring Europe and the world to find one.
Callum Wilson's finish in isolation was stunning, but that ball should never have fallen to him. A dampener and possibly an unnecessary one.
The xG Battle
Source - https://understat.com/match/
Palace had the edge in this fixture in terms of chances. Benteke is credited with 1.78xG on his own from the four key opportunities, which would have been enough to win the game on another day. This figure excludes his disallowed header, scrubbed from the record after the foul.
The Palace end of the "shot map" may look like domination, but Newcastle blocked six of these as they fully committed to the cause and snatched a point.
Based on xPTS, which looks at the balance of chances in each game, Palace currently would be worthy of a top ten place. Brighton was the meme over the last couple of seasons when it came to winning on xG but being unable to score. Let's hope Palace aren't about to emulate that.
On the Newcastle side of things, Callum Wilson's close-range shot in the first half hit the wrong side of the net but was the only decent chance the Palace defence gave up before the set-piece mishap.
Next Up: Manchester City
Sigh. The fixture list does have a habit of kicking teams when they are down. Pep Guardiola's team continues to be impressive and will be a considerable challenge for their former U23 manager.
On paper, this is a complete free-hit, given the squad's strength at City's disposal. Take your pick of Bernardo, Grealish or Foden as to which midfielder is more dangerous. But stranger things have happened in football.
A "softer" part of the fixture list begins after the trip to Manchester, but with matches coming thick and fast from here until the end of the year, rotating elements of the team might not be as risky as it seems.