Burnley's Dutch defender Erik Pieters (L) vies with Crystal Palace's English midfielder Eberechi Eze (R) during the English Premier League football match between Burnley and Crystal Palace at Turf Moor in Burnley, north west England on November 23, 2020. Photo: AFP
London: Wilfried Zaha had appeared in each of Crystal Palace’s last 59 games in the English Premier League stretching back to February 2019.
Conor Coady hadn’t missed a minute of Wolverhampton’s 84 league games since its promotion back to the top division in 2018. The two mainstays were unavailable while they isolated during the coronavirus pandemic and that took its toll on their teams on Monday.
Palace was toothless in attack without Zaha, who tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the game, and slumped to a 1-0 loss to a Burnley side that hadn’t previously won in the league. Chris Wood scored in the eighth minute.
Coady was missing for Wolves, having had to train in isolation after discovering he inadvertently came into contact with somebody who tested positive for the virus. With fellow center back Romain Saiss also out after contracting the virus, Wolves switched to a four-man defense for the first time since May 2017 — before the arrival of current coach Nuno Espirito Santo — and was uncomfortable until a late rally earned a 1-1 draw at home to Southampton.
Southampton led through a tap-in from Theo Walcott, who scored his first goal since returning for a second spell at the south-coast club where he started his professional career. Pedro Neto came off the bench to rescue a point for Wolves in the 75th.
That equaliser stopped Southampton climbing to third place after nine games. Wolves and Palace are in midtable, while Burnley’s first win of the season lifted Sean Dyche’s team out of the bottom three.
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