Palace survive relegation threat after 4-3 win over West Ham

Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze (right) celebrates with teammates Joel Ward and Jeffrey Schlupp (left) after scoring against West Ham at Selhurst Park, London, on Saturday. Pic/Getty Images

Crystal Palace effectively sealed their Premier League survival with a thrilling 4-3 win against West Ham that left their London rivals still in danger of relegation on Saturday.

Roy Hodgson's side moved 11 points clear of the bottom three thanks to goals from Jordan Ayew, Wilfried Zaha, Jeff Schlupp and Eberechi Eze at Selhurst Park.
Palace have won four of their six matches since Hodgson returned for a second spell at the club in place of the sacked Patrick Vieira. Tomas Soucek, Michail Antonio and Nayef Aguerd were on the scoresheet for West Ham.

Second loss for Moyes's men

But a second successive defeat leaves David Moyes's men five points above the relegation zone with daunting fixtures against Manchester City and Manchester United looming next week.

West Ham were in front after just nine minutes when Michael Olise headed his attempted clearance of Jarrod Bowen's corner straight to Soucek and the midfielder fired home from close-range.

Also Read: Premier League: Liverpool beats West Ham 2-1, not giving up on top-4 finish

Olise made amends for his blunder as Palace equalised six minutes later. Cheick Doucoure found Olise and the forward's superb pass picked out Ghana forward Ayew, whose first-time finish beat Lukasz Fabianski at the near post.

Zaha scores in 20th min

Zaha was back in the Palace starting line-up for the first time in four games since Hodgson's return as manager at the start of April. The Ivory Coast forward rewarded Hodgson's decision as he netted Palace's second goal in the 20th minute with a composed strike from another dangerous Olise cross.

West Ham's porous defence was breached again after half an hour, with Soucek carelessly losing possession on the edge of the area to Schlupp, who accepted the gift with a simple finish under the exposed Fabianski.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever