Back home against Palace

Last updated : 28 September 2007 By Tony Scholes

Palace ended last season just inside the top half of the league and that came courtesy of two wins in the last two games against Derby and Colchester. They'd been in the play offs a year earlier under Iain Dowie's management but he moved north to Charlton and this was Legend Peter Taylor's first season in charge.

He changed things around during the summer and a number of previously established players said their goodbyes to Selhurst Park. Central defender Darren Ward went to Wolves whilst both Gary Borrowdale and Michael Hughes joined old boss Dowie at Coventry. Tommy Black moved to Wolves, goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly joined us, Danny Granville signed for Colchester and Jobi McAnuff went to Watford in a £1.75 million deal.

Legend wasn't quite so busy in the transfer market as far as incoming players were concerned and he made only two permanent signings during the summer window with defenders Tony Craig and Jeff Hughes coming in from Millwall and Lincoln respectively.

Three more players came in on loan to strengthen the squad and they are shown below:

Tony Craig from Millwall
Jeff Hughes from Lincoln
Jose Fonte from Benfica (loan)
Paul Dickov from Manchester City (loan)
Besian Idrizaj from Liverpool (loan)

They got off to a dream start with a 4-1 win at Southampton, but six games without a win followed including a Carling Cup exit to Bristol Rovers. This led to speculation regarding the manager's position but they got their second win of the season last Saturday with a home win against Sheffield United.

Click HERE to see Crystal Palace's results this season


Burnley will be looking to get a second league home win of the season and if we do this it will be our first win against Palace in nine attempts. Our last victory was at Selhurst Park back in December 2001. We were top of the league then and won it with two goals from Ian Moore. Six of those eight games have ended in draws.


One to Watch

You can't do better than starting the season with a hat trick, and that's just what James Scowcroft did in Palace's 4-1 win at Southampton. It was the first opening day hat trick in the Championship for four years, since his now Palace team mate netted all three of their goals in a 3-2 win against the Clarets at the Turf.

Now 31, Scowcroft started his career with Ipswich, the club nearest to his Bury St Edmonds home. He progressed to the first team and made his debut for Ipswich in a 2-1 home defeat against Wolves in October 1995 a month before his twentieth birthday.

He quickly established himself as a first choice striker and went on to win five England caps at under-21 level. He helped Ipswich to win promotion to the Premiership in 2000 but in the summer of 2001 he moved to Leicester in a £3 million transfer.

It was whilst at Leicester he first played against the Clarets, he was in the side we beat 1-0 to become the first team to beat them at the Crisp Bowl and he made his Turf Moor debut later that season when they beat us 2-1.

After almost four years with Leicester he returned to Ipswich on loan for the last three months of the 2004/05 season and it looked as if he would sign on a permanent basis. He didn't, and Steve Cotterill tried to bring him to Burnley. Scowcroft eventually decided on Coventry to join his old Leicester boss Micky Adams on a free transfer.

However, he stayed only a year after being forced to play the whole season in a wide position, and was one of Taylor's first Palace signings in the summer of 2006, costing a fee of £500,000.

He scored the winning goal for Palace on his debut, against of all clubs Ipswich, and his first Selhurst Park goal was their second equaliser against us in last season's 2-2 draw. In total, including the hat trick, he has netted eight goals for Palace in 43 appearances.


Team News

Palace will again be without Paul Ifill and Mark Kennedy with hamstring and calf injuries respectively. To add to that Dougie Freedman, who was used as a substitute in last week's win against Sheffield United, has suffered a groin injury in training and has been ruled out.

It is expected that Palace will start with the same eleven who played last week and if so will line up: Julian Speroni, Danny Butterfield, Mark Hudson, Leon Cort, Tony Craig, Tom Soares, Carl Fletcher, Ben Watson, Stuart Green, James Scowcroft, Paul Dickov. Subs from: Scott Flinders, Matt Lawrence, Jeff Hughes, Besian Idrizaj, Clinton Morrison Jose Fonte, David Martin.

Click HERE to see the full Crystal Palace squad

Both Chris McCann and Andy Gray were ruled out of our Carling Cup tie against Portsmouth on Tuesday. McCann looks almost certain to be out again with a tweaked hamstring but Gray will play having recovered from an infection in a foot injury.

It looks almost certain that replacing McCann will be the only change and there are a number of options. Steve Cotterill has spoken of his disappointment at the performances of the senior players in the reserve game against Tranmere, so I suspect that will rule out Jon Harley, Joey Gudjonsson and Steve Jones.

James O'Connor could get his first league action of the season although I think the most likely player to come in is Alan Mahon. He returned to action after injury on Tuesday and again impressed, this time in a central midfield role.

We could line up: Gabor Kiraly, Michael Duff, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott, Graham Alexander, Alan Mahon, Kyle Lafferty, Robbie Blake, Andy Gray. Subs from: Brian Jensen, David Unsworth, James O'Connor, John Spicer, Ade Akinbiyi, Jon Harley, Joey Gudjonsson, Steve Jones.


Last Time Round

When Palace visited us last season it was just a few weeks away from the end of our run of games without a win. We went into the game lacking in confidence, we had injury problems and we experimented with Jon Harley playing on the left hand side of midfield with Chris McCann continuing at left back.

Ade Akinbiyi - scored against his old club
The start was awful, we looked lethargic and had just one half hearted effort at goal. Down at the Jimmy Mac end of the ground we got away with a goalkeeping blunder as Danny Coyne made a hash of a back header.

We didn't learn and in their next attack Palace took the lead. It was hardly an attack, more a punt up field from goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly. We allowed it to bounce and that was all Clinton Morrison needed to get in a header that looped over Coyne. It led to a debate as to whether Coyne was at fault but he answered it himself after the game when he accepted responsibility for it.

Coyne was having a nightmare and his next trick was to handle the ball outside the box. It wasn't a goalscoring opportunity so would have only been yellow, but incredibly it wasn't spotted by the officials and he got away with it.

We won a series of corners, all taken by Joey Gudjonsson, but with unerring accuracy he found goalkeeper Kiraly with everyone of them. Then Ade got himself two chances. The first was well saved by Kiraly but with the second he gave the keeper no chance and we were level.

He got in front of the defenders to head home a Michael Duff cross to net his first league goal for us since returning from Sheffield United. Almost immediately we were in front but a powerful shot from Gudjonsson flew just over the bar.

The second half was a different story, and for most of it we dominated. Most of our good play was coming from Duff and Wade Elliott down the right and they combined to set Ade up but he missed the chance.

We couldn't get a second goal and worryingly, in the last few minutes, Palace pushed for a winner. Thankfully it didn't come and at least we got a point.

The teams were;

Burnley: Danny Coyne, Michael Duff, John McGreal, Steven Caldwell, Chris McCann (Steve Jones 80), Wade Elliott, James O'Connor, Joey Gudjonsson, Jon Harley, Ade Akinbiyi, Andy Gray (Garreth O'Connor 89). Subs not used: Stephen Foster, John Spicer, Eric Djemba-Djemba.

Crystal Palace: Gabor Kiraly, Danny Butterfield, Mark Hudson, Leon Cort, Matt Lawrence, Lewis Spence (Ben Watson 66), Carl Fletcher, Tom Soares, James Scowcroft, Clinton Morrison, Dougie Freedman (Lewis Grabban 63). Subs not used: Julian Speroni, Darren Ward, David Martin.


Previous results against Crystal Palace

Previous 20 Seasons

Season

Div

Ven

Result

Att

Scorers

2000/01

1

a

1-0

18,531

Branch

.

WC

h

2-2

5,889

Cooke Payton(pen)

.

WC

a

1-1

5,720

Cooke - lost on away goals

.

1

h

1-2

14,973

Cook

2001/02

1

h

1-0

14,713

Cook

..

a

2-1

18,457

Ian Moore(2)

2002/03

1

h

0-0

12,407

.

..

a

1-1

16,344

Taylor

2003/04

1

h

2-3

12,976

Blake Roche

..

a

0-0

15,276

.

2005/06

C

a

0-2

20,127

.

..

h

0-0

11,449

.

2006/07

C

a

2-2

16,396

Mahon Lafferty

..

h

1-1

10,659

Akinbiyi



Click HERE to see all our results against Crystal Palace