Rare Selhurst Park defeat

It’s a shocking view, we were ripped off to the tune of £25 for the privilege of sitting in an area with far too little leg room, but I was still amused to see them coming out to the Dave Clark Five effort, it did remind me of that day in 2001 when they were getting all excited at the appointment of Mr Misery Trevor Francis.

Steve Cotterill named the same side as had won at Leicester on Tuesday night with the one enforced change on the bench, and as expected it saw Danny Karbassiyoon named in the sixteen for the first time since August, and for the first time in a Burnley shirt whilst fit.

I was expecting a much tougher game than at Leicester, I believed Palace (probably because I tipped them for promotion in August) to be a top side just waiting to take off. They were far from that and this was without doubt a game we could have won.

As expected it was Palace, smarting from their home defeat against Brighton, who took the early initiative but they didn’t cause us too many problems at the back and it was the Clarets who first came close to breaking the deadlock through Ade Akinbiyi.

He was put clear down the left hand side and should have done much better than he did, but allowed himself to be pushed too wide and his eventual shot was blocked by a Palace defender. It looked as thought it might be a game of few opportunities, and we’d missed the first one.

That seemed to spark the home side into life and over the next few minutes Brian Jensen had to be alert a few times as he dealt with shots from the Palace forwards, but they were all long range efforts and that was testament to the way we were defending.

It was just the same at the other end and both O’Connors (do we really call them Des and Sinead?) both tried their luck from distance with no success as the rather strange looking figure of Gabor Kiraly in goal had no difficulty in keeping them out.

He did around ten minutes from half time after we won a free kick on the edge of the box which was taken by Jon Harley after a four man committee meeting. With John McGreal doing his best to disturb the wall both James O and Micah touched the ball for the left back to curl it round the post. It was so similar to the Garreth O goal at Wolves but Kiraly made a top save as it was going into the bottom corner.

Just a couple of minutes later we found ourselves a goal behind after errors all over the place. The impressive Marco Reich, Michael Duff will be glad to see the back of him, got past Wade Elliott down the Palace left to get a deep cross in. I hope Elliott made a note of it, that is what wingers are supposed to do, get past their man and get crosses in.

The cross found Harley napping but certainly not Jobi McAnuff who headed it back across for Clinton Morrison to head home from close range. Defenders and keeper reacted far too slowly other than to put their hands up for offside. But what was Duff doing, other than playing the goalscorer onside.

Cue fake atmosphere at its worst before the game got going again and after Ade tried a speculative overhead kick we found ourselves struggling in the closing stages of the half as Palace more than once came close to doubling their lead. It was us who were thankful for the half time whistle.

It hadn’t been the best of football, there hadn’t been too much incident, and Palace hadn’t been anything like as good as I thought they would be. We were still in with a shout here.

And after a quiet opening to the second half we started to come into it the game considerably but, just as in the first half, most of the efforts at goal were coming from distance and Kiraly was dealing with them easily.

We looked laboured at times in the midfield but we weren’t playing particularly well and John Spicer in particular had looked like little boy lost, making virtually no impact at all. So it came as no surprise that it was his number 19 held up when Steve decided to make a change and switch to 4-4-2 with Gifton Noel-Williams coming on.

That seemed to give us a lift and we started to put more pressure on Palace. There were a couple of shots and then the best chance of the afternoon fell to Ade. He got on the end of a right wing cross from Duff after good work from Garreth O but he put his header wide of the right hand post and we were to pay the price.

Almost immediately Palace attacked and a shot from outside the box wasn’t held by the Beast. It rolled away and he didn’t react quickly enough. Morrison got in and knocked it back for Dougie Freedman to score his first goal of the season.

It was all over now but Ade deflected a Micah effort onto the post as we tried to get back into it. There was to be no way back though and the final whistle signalled only our third ever defeat to Palace at Selhurst. The effects of this one are not quite so dramatic, in 1979 it ensured Palace went up to Division One and in 1983 it kept them up whilst condemning us to 3rd Division football and a future with John Bond.

This wasn’t a good performance, but probably overall as good as, if not better than, the performance at Leicester. It was a game that could have gone either way, we didn’t deserve to win it but I do think the scoreline flatters Palace. Both goals saw individual errors, we missed our chances at the other end, and that is why we came away with nothing other than a couple of bookings from a referee who was keener on nit picking than following the game.

Picking out a man of the match is not easy but for much of the game we didn’t look as though we would concede a goal and so I look towards the defence, and none better for me than captain Frank Sinclair.

It’s Villa now, I’m sure we’ll have to play better than that to get anything, but I’m sure we will.

The teams were,

Crystal Palace: Gabor Kiraly, Danny Butterfield, Fitz Hall, Darren Ward, Emmerson Boyce, Jobi McAnuff (Wayne Andrews 45), Ben Watson, Tom Soares, Marco Reich (Michael Hughes 83), Clinton Morrison, Jonathan Macken (Dougie Freedman 38). Subs not used: Julian Speroni, Mark Hudson.

Burnley: Brian Jensen, Michael Duff, Frank Sinclair, John McGreal, Jon Harley, Wade Elliott (Duane Courtney 82), John Spicer (Gifton Noel-Williams 67), James O’Connor, Micah Hyde, Garreth O’Connor, Ade Akinbiyi. Subs not used: Keith Lowe, Chris McCann, Danny Karbassiyoon.

Referee: Mick Thorpe (Suffolk).

Attendance: 20,127.