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Three things we learned from West Ham’s 1-0 victory over Crystal Palace
Expensive strikers don’t always save the day
Both clubs spent much of their summers chasing expensive strikers, and whilst Palace got one of their top targets in Christian Benteke, he could not do enough to earn the three points for Alan Pardew. Benteke’s penalty sent Adrian the wrong way but went the wrong side of the post for the Eagles.
At the other end of the pitch, Simone Zaza continued to flatter to deceive as he provided little threat even with Dimitri Payet, Manuel Lanzini, Michail Antonio and Aaron Cresswell all providing support alongside him. The Italian may well be playing for his future having failed to impress early on in his West Ham career, but he still isn’t producing the goods.
The Belgian may have been the more expensive of the two, but it certainly showed and he was the more dominant of the two even though he failed to get on the scoresheet. Had his header been an inch or two to the right and deflected into the net, rather than off the post and out, the result could have been a very different one on Saturday evening.