Crystal Palace geared up for Saturday’s FA Cup final against Manchester City with a derby victory against Tottenham that helped them equal their record Premier League points tally.
Eberechi Eze scored for the fourth game running to pull 12th-placed Palace ahead at the end of a one-sided first half before the England international sealed the win for Oliver Glasner’s side soon after restart.
The Eagles now have 49 points with two games left – equalling their record tally first set during the 1992-93 season and matched both in 2018-19 and 2023-24.
Meanwhile, Tottenham fell to a record 20th league defeat of the season and are now 17th – with only the relegated Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton below them.
A much-changed Spurs were pushed on to the backfoot straight from kick-off by the visitors, who had two goals ruled out before they finally took the lead.
Ismaila Sarr netted from Daniel Munoz’s cross inside 10 minutes only for it to be chalked off for offside before right wing-back Munoz rattled the crossbar.
Palace’s frustrations grew as Maxence Lacroix then had his header disallowed after it hit team-mate Marc Guehi’s arm on its way in.
But Eze turned home a cross from Munoz at the stroke of half-time to make it 1-0 and there was a sigh of relief from the away end as the goal stood following a video assistant referee (VAR) check for offside.
The result was put beyond doubt only three minutes into the second half when Eze exchanged passes with Sarr before side-footing the return pass into the bottom corner as Palace geared up for a historic trip to Wembley in style.
[BBC]