Recent Crystal Palace signing Patrick Van Aanholt appeared more than happy with his side’s Premier League humbling by his former club Sunderland.
Crystal Palace suffered a 4-0 home humiliation by losing to relegation rivals Sunderland in an outcome that leaves the Eagles joint bottom of the Premier League standings, now accompanied by their victors on a mere 19 points from 24 games.
The encounter was seemingly decided by half time, as first half goals from Lamine Kone (signed by Sam Allardyce for Sunderland), Didier Ndong and a double from Jermaine Defoe, condemned former Black Cats manager Allardyce to his sixth defeat in the eight league games of his Palace tenure to date.
See also: Palace fans react to Sunderland defeat with angst for Allardyce
However, it is another of Allardyce’s defensive dealings, £14 million signing from Sunderland Patrick Van Aanholt, who has faced significant criticism following his new club’s capitulation against his old employers.
Indeed, upon the final whistle of what must have been an embarrassing experience by Allardyce’s Palace charges, left-back Van Aanholt appeared to be most jovial with former teammate, and scorer of the game’s crucial brace just before the break, Defoe.
For many an observer on social media platform Twitter, the optics of a player sharing smiles, laughs and embraces with an opponent who had just heavily contributed to inflicting a Selhurst Park thrashing on Palace was not greeted with the same level of happiness seemingly displayed by the Eagles’ number 3.
See also: Former Palace man makes the ‘Played for both XI – Nottingham Forest and Aston Villa‘
Here is a taste of the reaction to Palace’s Van Aanholt’s over-familiar post game pondering with Sunderland scorer Defoe.
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