For an hour and more, Crystal Palace had defied their own arithmetic, a man light and twice ahead of the game only to be dragged back by their own recklessness. Yet football keeps its cruellest lessons for the ninetieth minute, and it was there, with Selhurst Park already braced for a hard-earned point, that Zian Flemming stole in from very close range to settle it. Ipswich Town 3, Crystal Palace 2. A raid, a robbery, a result to shape both seasons.

This was a match that refused to sit still. Five goals, a red card, a scoreline that swung four times, and a home side left to rue the moment their discipline deserted them. Palace led inside a quarter of an hour and led again with fifteen minutes to play. Ipswich, resilient and clinical, simply kept coming back until they finally went past. For the visitors it was a statement of intent; for the hosts, another wound reopened.

The margins in the Premier League are unforgiving, and Palace found that out the hard way. They played the second half against a numerical tide and the tide, in the end, drowned them.

A frantic first half

Palace could hardly have dreamed of a brighter opening. On fourteen minutes Daichi Kamada slid the ball into the channel and Anan Khalaili did the rest, arrowing a right-footed shot from the right side of the box into the bottom-left corner. Selhurst Park roared, sensing a night that might finally break their grim early run. The lead, though, lasted barely nine minutes.

Ipswich answered through the air. Leif Davis floated a cross to the centre of the box and Emersonn rose to plant a header into the top-left corner, a finish of real conviction that hushed the home crowd and reset the contest. The visitors, sensing a soft underbelly, pressed for more, and Palace's afternoon began to fray at the edges.

It unravelled entirely on thirty-four minutes. Axel Disasi was shown a red card, and with it Palace's plan was torn up. Reduced to ten, they could not hold the line to the interval. In first-half stoppage time Emersonn turned provider, and Davis climbed to nod home from very close range into the bottom-right corner. From a goal up to a goal down and a man short, Palace trudged off to a chorus of disbelief.

Defiance and heartbreak

What followed was a display of stubbornness that deserved a better ending. Palace, outnumbered and behind, refused to fold. They dug in, closed the spaces, and waited for the moment that might reward their resistance. It arrived on seventy-five minutes, and once more Kamada was the architect.

The Japanese playmaker teed up Jørgen Strand Larsen on the right side of the box, and the striker lashed a right-footed finish into the bottom-left corner. Selhurst Park erupted, the noise carrying all the defiance of a side that had earned every inch of its parity. For fifteen minutes it looked as though ten men might hold on for a point that would have felt like a victory.

Then came the sucker punch. In the ninetieth minute Flemming ghosted into the six-yard box and swept a right-footed shot into the bottom-left corner, and the belief drained out of the home end in an instant. Kamada's two assists, Strand Larsen's leveller, all of the hosts' obstinate toil — undone in a heartbeat. There was no time to respond.

What the table says

The consequences are stark. Crystal Palace remain 16th on three points, a single win from their opening four matches and three defeats already staining the record. Six goals scored and eleven conceded tells the story of a defence that has shipped too freely and an attack that has flickered without sustaining. For a club with grander ambitions, the early season has the feel of a slow-burning crisis.

Ipswich Town, by contrast, climb to seventh on six points, their two wins now offset only by two defeats but their momentum unmistakably upward. Seven scored and ten conceded suggests a side still learning to defend, yet one blessed with the nerve to win ugly and win late. Grabbing three points on the road, and doing so after being pegged back, is the mark of a team growing into its season.

The gap between the two clubs — three points and nine league places — barely captures the swing in mood. Ipswich leave south London energised; Palace are left staring at a bottom-third berth they never anticipated occupying.

The road ahead

For Palace, the questions are mounting. A red card that shifted the balance, a lead surrendered twice, and a late goal that felt almost inevitable given the way the afternoon had gone — these are the details of a team fighting itself as much as the opposition. Restoring defensive solidity and, crucially, discipline must be the immediate priority if the slide is to be arrested before it hardens into something worse.

There is, at least, evidence to build on. The spirit of ten men clawing level spoke of a group unwilling to accept its fate, and Kamada's creativity offers a platform. Turning defiance into points, though, requires the composure to see out the moments that matter. That, right now, is precisely what Palace lack.

Ipswich, meanwhile, can travel on with their tails up, a side that has discovered the knack of finding a way. Flemming's late intervention will linger long in the memory, the kind of goal that defines campaigns and hardens belief. On this evidence, the visitors are equipped to make trouble for far more than the club they left dazed at Selhurst Park.