Cups over - now time to concentrate on the league

Last updated : 11 March 2009 By

We might well have gone out of the cup but in the bread and butter of the league we haven't had a bad week since we beat Blackpool at the half a ground last Tuesday. And that's without kicking a ball in league action.

With all the promotion contenders playing on Saturday and then again last night, two games without us kicking a ball, we could have been looking at a big gap between ourselves and the top six.

But that's not the case and such have been the results that, despite us now being ninth, a win tonight would lift us back into that top six that we left following the defeat to Swansea a couple of months ago.

Everyone says concentrate on the league once you are out of the cup. It's an old footballing cliché but it fits our situation perfectly. We've never made the end of season play offs in this league, and now we've got as good a chance as we've ever had. Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs has given us the taste. Tonight we can start looking to grab a chance of having more.

Our Opponents


Crystal Palace ended last season in the play offs and were expected to challenge again this time. It's not quite worked out that way, as yet, and they currently sit five places below us with eight points less although they do have a game in hand.

They've lost some influential players and none more so than Ben Watson who moved to Wigan in January and that adds to the departures of such as Tom Soares and Clinton Morrison in the summer.

We played Palace back in August, winning our first point of the season on Bank Holiday weekend. Since then they've made just one permanent signing, predictably for Neil Warnock a striker. That was former Claret Alan Lee from Ipswich.

Since the turn of the year he has boosted his squad with the loan signings of Rui Fonte, Claude Davis and Anthony Stokes from Arsenal, Derby and Sunderland respectively.

Stokes scored his first goal for Palace in a 2-1 win against Preston that was welcomed by Burnley fans. It ended a run of one point from four games in which they'd failed to score. Their last away success came last month at Plymouth.

Tonight will be Neil Warnock's first visit to Turf Moor since taking charge of Crystal Palace. He was last here with Sheffield United in August 2005. They beat us that day but hopefully he'll go back home with a defeat from Burnley for the first time since 2003.

Team News


Neil Warnock has said he would have liked to have played the same team that beat Preston on Saturday but it is not possible. However he does have Nick Carle back after suspension and Victor Moses could be set to return just two weeks after suffering a hamstring injury.

They will be without Matt Lawrence who has a hamstring injury and Nathan Clyne will come in for him. Alan Lee remains absent with a calf injury and Sean Scannell is touch and go.

Palace could line up: Julian Speroni, Nathan Clyne, Claude Davis, Clint Hill, Jose Fonte, John Oster, Nick Carle, Shaun Derry, Paul Ifill, Shefki Kuqi, Anthony Stokes. Subs from: Neil Danns, Rui Fonte, Sean Scannell, Victor Moses, Johannes Ertl, James Scowcroft.

Click HERE to see the full Crystal Palace squad


Owen Coyle has said he'll freshen things up again after the Arsenal defeat and he does have two more players to choose from in Rhys Williams and Michael Duff who were both unavailable on Sunday.

Williams is likely to come back in with Graham Alexander reverting to the holding midfield role, but it is unclear where any other changes might be made. Perhaps Wade Elliott will be preferred to Chris Eagles on the right hand side and Steven Thompson might get the nod over Martin Paterson up front.

If so the team could be: Brian Jensen, Rhys Williams, Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Christian Kalvenes, Graham Alexander, Wade Elliott, Kevin McDonald, Chris McCann, Robbie Blake, Steven Thompson. Subs from: Diego Penny, Michael Duff, Stephen Jordan, Joey Gudjonsson, Alan Mahon, Alex MacDonald, Chris Eagles, Jay Rodriguez, Martin Paterson.

Last Season


Michael Duf
Michael Duff - his season came to an end
One player who won't wish to remember our home game against Crystal Palace last season is Michael Duff. He was stretchered off six minutes before half time with a serious knee injury that kept him out of the first team until the return fixture on the last day of the season.

Palace, then under the management of the Legend, started well and were in front after just five minutes when Mark Hudson headed home from a corner. And it could have been much worse as they missed another good opportunity and twice Gabor Kiraly came to our rescue with good saves against his former club.

Thankfully we got back into the game quickly with a goal from Robbie Blake, or was it Michael Duff? We won a free kick on the left and Robbie played it into the box. No one's sure whether Duff got a touch or not, some records show it as a Blake goal, others as Duff's but the club confirmed it was Robbie's goal and Duffo hadn't touched it despite photographic evidence suggesting otherwise.

For much of the rest of the first half there was one star on the pitch. As the game got scrappy it allowed Trevor Kettle to come to the fore with a bizarre performance with so many wrong decisions both ways it looked easier to select six winning lottery numbers than determine what he was going to give next.

Kyle Lafferty came close to giving us the lead and then came the injury to Duff that saw him replaced by John Spicer with Graham Alexander moving to right back for the first time since joining the Clarets.

The first half had been scrappy but from Burnley's point of view the second half was much better. We dominated the midfield with both Alan Mahon and Spicer having excellent games and we should have gone on to win it.

There were concerns at the back but going forward we did everything but put the ball into the net and alongside the two midfield players Robbie Blake stood out yet again in what was his best home performance since re-signing.

But we had to settle for a draw, our second in successive games, but it had been a good start to the season with only one defeat in the first seven games.

The teams were;

Burnley: Gabor Kiraly, Michael Duff (John Spicer 39), Clarke Carlisle, Steven Caldwell, Stephen Jordan, Wade Elliott, Graham Alexander, Alan Mahon, Kyle Lafferty (Ade Akinbiyi 70), Robbie Blake, Andy Gray (Steve Jones 70). Subs not used: Brian Jensen, David Unsworth.

Crystal Palace: Julian Speroni, Danny Butterfield, Leon Cort, Mark Hudson, Tony Craig, Carl Fletcher, Ben Watson, Tom Soares, Stuart Green (Jeff Hughes 60), Paul Dickov (Besian Idrizaj 60), James Scowcroft (Clinton Morrison 76). Subs not used: Scott Flinders, Matt Lawrence.

Previous games 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

2007/08

C

h

1-1

10,711

Blake

..

a

0-5

23,950

.

2008/09

C

a

0-0

14,071

.



Click HERE to see all our results against Crystal Palace