Wilfried Zaha Reminds of His Promise with Devastating Cameo vs. Spurs

LONDON — Alan Pardew's first Premier League game in charge of Crystal Palace produced three spectacular points, and his decision-making played a huge part in earning them.

In 2015, Selhurst Park is hardly the fortress it was under Tony Pulis, where Palace continually bullied and buried their teams en route to safety, but Pardew overcame an exceptionally tough assignment on Saturday—home to fifth-placed Tottenham Hotspur sans Mile Jedinak and Yannick Bolasie, his two best players—by using his squad properly and appropriately.

On paper this match was a whitewash; a front three of Dwight Gayle, Glenn Murray and Jason Puncheon, just ahead of Aston Villa outcast Barry Bannan, was doomed to failure against a far stronger Spurs XI. But despite positive performances from Harry Kane, Benjamin Stambouli (in the first half) and Kyle Walker, goalkeeper Hugo Lloris was their clear and obvious best player.

Pardew used his substitutions superbly and sensed the right time to bring on a relative trump card in Wilfried Zaha. It was his performance, among others, admittedly, that epitomised the turning nature of the match over the course of 90 minutes.

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It was also a reminder of exactly what Zaha is capable of; his star has fallen so far most Premier League fans have forgotten the obvious talent he possesses, and he chose the ideal time to remind Pardew, too.

Sensing a stretched game, Pardew hauled an ineffective Murray off the pitch and moved Gayle inside to run at Federico Fazio. The Argentinian won every header going, but having a speedster run at him is a sure-fire way to gain ground and exert pressure on Spurs.

With Gayle central, Zaha came on to play from the left and took advantage of the swathes of space Walker was leaving as he pushed forward. The pass over the top on the counter-attack only had to be semi-accurate for Zaha to successfully bring it down.

The Manchester United loanee's work in the build-up to Jason Puncheon's superb winner was what we all expected, on a more regular basis, after signing with Sir Alex Ferguson's men in January 2013. Just shy of two years to the day since that moment, Pardew put his thirst for success to the test and came out delighted with the result.

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"Wilfried came on and gave me exactly the reaction I was looking for. I left him out, to be honest, to see what would happen and what kind of reaction I would get," he admitted to reporters in the post-match press conference.

"He's done himself no harm today. That 25 minutes was electrifying. Rekindled."

A resurgent Zaha is a weapon—a devastating weapon, in fact—when you're set to fight against relegation from the Premier League. With Bolasie to return and a potentially rejuvenated Puncheon, too, Pardew has no shortage of creative armoury to play with between now and the end of the season.

The key question regarding Zaha will, though, remain: Can he produce at the end of his mazy dribbles, and can he fire in consistent, deadly crosses and cut-backs for his colleagues to profit from?

End product has been his biggest enemy since the spotlight fell on his fledgling career; is Pardew the man to keep the fire burning?

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