Late arrival & incredible comeback – Burnley deepen Palace woes

When Burnley fans first heard the news that their team bus had been caught up in traffic on the way to Selhurst Park – and that their game at Crystal Palace would be delayed by 10 minutes as a result – they may have been fearing the worst.

After all, this was hardly ideal preparation for a team lying second bottom in the Premier League table, 11 points adrift of safety and without a win in their last 16 top-flight games.

With 12 minutes of the first half remaining, by which time Jorgen Strand Larsen’s double had helped Palace breeze into a 2-0 first-half lead, the Clarets faithful will have been resigned to another bruising defeat, continuing their agonising slide back towards the Championship.

By the time referee Farai Hallam had blown his half-time whistle, however, they may have been joking to each other about holding up the team bus themselves before their trip to Chelsea in their next Premier League game.

Tuesday’s encounter had been following a familiar script. Parker’s team had not only given away two easy goals, they had failed to register a shot on target in the first 39 minutes of the contest.

The seven that followed had to be seen to be believed.

Hannibal Mejbri made it 2-1 with his first goal of the season, before Jaidon Anthony arrowed a low shot into the corner to bring Burnley level four minutes later.

Burnley’s extraordinary comeback was complete in first-half stoppage time, when goalkeeper Dean Henderson parried Bashir Humphreys’ header on to the foot of Jefferson Lerma and into the net to spark jubilant, almost disbelieving scenes in the away end.

This extraordinary result may prove too little, too late for the Clarets in their battle to avoid relegation.

Having endured one of his toughest afternoons of his Burnley tenure on Saturday, Parker looked like he was trying to keep a lid on his emotions after Tuesday’s astonishing victory.

But you could hear the fierce pride in Parker’s voice as he spoke about his players’ heroics in his post-match interview with TNT Sports.

“There aren’t many teams who would come back here after going 2-0 down,” he said. “It speaks absolute volumes for this group.

“If there was ever any question about how together this group is, how committed this group is, how resilient this group is – [tonight] said it all, really.”

Parker’s team remain nine points adrift of safety with only 12 matches of the 2025/26 season left to play.

But neither Parker, nor his players have given up hope of mounting a late survival charge.

“There has always been belief [that we can stay up],” he continued. “The results over the last few months probably haven’t gone our way, but tonight that definitely was the case,” he said.

“Coming off the back of an incredibly tough game for us at the weekend – for many reasons – that performance showed a group that is full of resilience, full of commitment.

“You don’t get that result without proper resilience, standing up to certain battles and certain situations. The biggest lesson for any group is to keep coming back up.

So where does Tuesday’s result leave Palace?

In stark contrast to his opposite number, Oliver Glasner looked ashen-faced when he addressed the media after the full-time whistle, which was greeted by loud boos from the Palace supporters.

Having watched his team arrest a 12-match winless run against arch rivals Brighton last time out, Glasner looked set to mark his 100th match in charge of the club with another morale-boosting win after Strand Larsen’s double.

But Palace froze after Mejbri had pulled a goal back for Burnley, who took full advantage of the hosts’ inertia to inflict one of the most painful defeats of the Austrian’s Selhurst Park tenure.

“It’s not acceptable,” Glasner, who is leaving the club in the summer, told TNT Sports. “I can’t explain it. Maybe [the first 39 minutes] were too easy.

“The start was very good. We controlled everything, [but] I’ve watched all the goals back and it’s just not acceptable how we defended as a team – just jogging around, not in the duels, not in the second balls.”

Another issue, according to Glasner, is the presence of a Marc Guehi-sized hole in the Palace defence.

The England defender left for Manchester City for an initial £20m last month in a move which incurred the wrath of Glasner, who announced his own departure not long afterwards.

“Right now, we don’t have someone on the pitch who leads the team in these moments, who makes players calm and decides the meaning of the game,” he said.

“I praise the boys very often for their effort. When you throw the game away like we did, you don’t deserve to win.”

Palace are still eight points above the bottom three – a sizeable cushion, but one not comfortable enough for a side with only one win in all competitions since 11 December.