EPL: Edouard leads Palace to comfortable win over Norwich

Crystal Palace swept away rock-bottom Norwich 3-0 at Selhurst Park to end the year with an emphatic win.

Palace, beaten 3-0 in their last outing by Tottenham, were again without manager Patrick Viera in the dugout while Wilfred Zaha and Conor Gallagher were also unavailable.

Dean Smith was desperate to get his Norwich side back on track after four straight defeats and the visitors started the game brightly. But as seems typical with the Canaries at the moment, all their hard work was quickly undone with some poor decision making.

On this occasion it was Kenny McLean who caught Will Hughes in the box after the Palace midfielder produced a neat turn to win a penalty after just seven minutes. Up stepped Odsonne Edouard who made no mistake from the spot and slotted home to break the deadlock.

From then on it became one way traffic as Edouard was involved in the next two goals. First the striker fizzed in a cross which was tucked away by Jean-Philippe Mateta. For the second goal the Frenchman danced his way into the box before teeing up Jeffrey Schlupp who fired his shot past Angus Gunn to make it 3-0.

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The second half saw Norwich attempt to be more adventurous, but as the game wore on it became increasingly apparent how much quality they lacked in the final third, each time they surged forward they failed to make the right passing choice.

For Palace it was a case of keeping a clean sheet and adding to their lead when possible. Schlupp came closest to making it 4-0 with a low driving effort from the edge of the box which was stopped by the feet of Gunn.

Next up for the Eagles is a London derby with West Ham, while Norwich journey to the King Power Stadium to take on Leicester.