West Ham earned a 0-0 draw at Crystal Palace that nudged the club two points above Tottenham in the relegation battle and confirmed Wolves’ drop to the Championship after eight straight Premier League seasons.

The stalemate at Selhurst Park leaves West Ham one point further away from the bottom three, while Burnley also face the threat of relegation and could join Wolves by the end of the coming weekend, depending on other Premier League results.

Nuno Espirito Santo’s side travelled to south London knowing victory over Crystal Palace would create a four-point cushion to the relegation places, after Tottenham conceded late in a 2-2 draw with Brighton on Saturday, but the away team could not turn that opportunity into three points.

The contest featured few clear chances for either West Ham or Crystal Palace, with the second half especially tight, as both sides struggled to create sustained pressure and the game drifted towards a draw that suited the visitors more than the hosts.

Crystal Palace thought the breakthrough had arrived on 82 minutes when substitute Ismaila Sarr spun and drove a low finish into the net, after Jean-Philippe Mateta challenged for a high ball and directed it into Sarr’s path inside the penalty area.

Referee Darren England ruled that Mateta had used an arm when winning the initial aerial duel, and a VAR check backed that decision, cancelling the Crystal Palace strike and preserving West Ham’s clean sheet and precious point in the Premier League survival race.

Earlier, West Ham almost went in front before half-time when El Hadji Malick Diouf delivered a deep cross from the right and Konstantinos Mavropanos met it with a powerful header, but Crystal Palace goalkeeper Dean Henderson reacted sharply and pushed the effort away with an instinctive stop.

Crystal Palace created their best first-half opening through Brennan Johnson, who first failed to connect cleanly with a near-post header, then later cut inside and sent a curling shot from distance just wide, while Maxence Lacroix produced an important block from Valentin Castellanos’ bicycle kick at the other end.

Premier League stats underline West Ham and Crystal Palace stalemate

The match offered limited attacking threat, with the teams combining for only 1.29 expected goals, split as 0.68 xG for Crystal Palace and 0.61 xG for West Ham, underlining how few clear shooting chances were created across the 90 minutes.

Both back lines produced controlled displays, with West Ham now recording consecutive Premier League clean sheets for the first time since February 2025, while Crystal Palace registered a 12th shutout of this league campaign, their second-best tally after keeping 15 clean sheets in the 1994-95 season.

Crystal Palace’s defensive record has improved notably under Oliver Glasner; since Glasner’s first match in February 2024, the club have kept 28 Premier League clean sheets, with only Arsenal on 36 and Manchester City on 32 managing more shutouts during the same period.

That strong Crystal Palace structure offers a platform ahead of the club’s push for the Conference League trophy in the coming weeks, while for West Ham the focus remains avoiding further trouble by staying ahead of Tottenham and the rest of the Premier League relegation rivals.