Crystal Palace - 2 (Forssell 2. Pollock 6.)
West Bromwich Albion - 2 (Sneekes 42. Hughes 55.)

Entering this match West Brom were in 4th position whilst Palace languished in 16th place. As things transpired by the end of the match nothing had changed. We gave them a bit of a fright at the beginning, but by the end we were desperately hanging on for the point that was on offer.

With Hayden Mullins serving the last match of his three game ban and Fan Zhiyi still out injured, a few changes were forced upon us, though we really did have the choice of all the remaining players. Missing of course were our two new Chinese players, Li Ming and Sun Jihai, I wonder if they are ever going to turn up?

The match got underway, and any Palace supporter that turned up a few minutes late would have missed both of our very impressive efforts. We literally pulled the rug out from under the promotion chasing side before they knew what had hit them.

Daryl Burgess failed to head out an effective clearance, and Mikael Forssell pounced on the ball a mere ten yards out. He elegantly pushed the ball wide of the despairing keeper, and with only two minutes gone we were 1-0 up.

It did not take very long for us to double our lead. A corner saw a well-placed ball delivered by Simon Rodger to the far post, where Jamie Pollock was on hand to bury the ball in the back of the net.

The Baggies then started to hit back, with some well taken chances just going wide of the mark, notably chances from Lee Hughes, who missed an open goal opportunity, and Jason Roberts missing just as easy a chance, Alex making a last gasp save.

Despite the fact that the rest of the half produced some great end-to-end football it appeared as if we might, for once, go to the break holding a two-goal advantage. Of course, this was never to be, and a few minutes from time Richard Sneekes took a 25-yard free kick that took a deflection and shot past Alex Kolinko going the wrong way. Our lead had been halved, and we had to settle for that at the break.

The second half was nearly all the visitors, with both Hughes and Roberts being denied only by the brilliance of Alex in goal. It was never going to last though, and with the Palace defence looking for the offside ruling Hughes raced past the last line of resistance, got past Alex and neatly place the ball into the back of the open net.

Five minutes later Albion were indeed to rue the linesman's decision. Roberts this time received a great through ball that he squeezed low into the corner of the net, but even whilst the visitors were celebrating a great "goal" the official called the attention of the referee back to the offside ruling, and the "goal" was disallowed. Despite this upset there still appeared to be no real response from the Eagles, and as time ran out we were lucky to survive further chances for the now marauding front-runners.

Chances to both Roberts and Hughes went begging, and we finally managed to hang on long enough to salvage the point. Although many may consider this as two points lost it was, most likely, a point gained in light of the match progress.

Here's hoping that we have a better showing at Turf Moor next week.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Alex Kolinko, Jamie Smith, Dean Austin, Neil Ruddock, Craig Harrison, Andrejs Rubins, Simon Rodger, Steve Thomson (Tommy Black 64), Jamie Pollock, Mikael Forssell, Clinton Morrison (Dougie Freedman 75).

Substitutes not used: Andrew Frampton, Wayne Carlisle, Stephen Kabba.

West Bromwich Albion: Brian Jensen, Des Lyttle, Neil Clement, James Chambers, Daryl Burgess, Ruel Fox (Jordao 79), Michael Appleton, Richard Sneekes, Jason Van Blerk, Lee Hughes, Jason Roberts (Bob Taylor 83).

Substitutes not used: James Quinn, Adam Chambers, Chris Adamson.

Attendance: 16,692

Referee Mr M Jones (Chester)