Crystal Palace - 3 (Morrison 23. Fan 71. Mullins 74.)
Leicester City - 3 (Digby {og} 17. Lennox 34. Guppy 58.)

Having played Leicester City only a few weeks ago in a friendly at Selhurst Park before the start of the season, where the final score finished 1-1, it was a surprise when Palace drew Leicester once again in this two-legged affair. Martin O'Neill brought the Foxes back to South East London, looking to do a lot better than they did last time in a Cup match, when they went down 3-0. Considering that the Foxes are flying high in the Premier League, and we are propping up the First Division, they would have rightly considered this match as dangerous, but something from which they should take home an unassailable lead for next week's return match. For a fair proportion of the match this appeared to be on the cards, with probably a tactical blunder allowing Palace a chance to get back into the match. That the tie is still firmly in favour of the visitors is not beyond doubt, but anything can happen on the day, and next Wednesday Palace will be looking to steal the match from the Foxes at Filbert Street. This may not be as hard as first seems, as currently Leicester are going through a fair boardroom wrangle, and it is widely known that a number of players are being investigated regarding ticket touting. Next Wednesday will reveal all, at least on the field of play if not in the boardrooms and the courts.

The match started with Palace providing the more enterprising moves, and it seemed to take a long time for the Foxes to wake up to the fact that they had a match on their hands, and it was time to play. Once they did though, they looked the class that we all know that they are. Theo Zagorakis put his corner to the back post of our area, and a full blooded shot from Matt Elliott struck Fraser Digby on the leg before deflecting for a goal. 1-0 down, we were not going to let the match slip away that easily. A good move by Jose Antunes Fumaca down the right side of the field, with an excellent cross into the area, found Clinton Morrison on hand to glide the ball past Pegguy Arphexad in goal to level up the scores. We had only been behind for five minutes. Ten minutes later though it was again the turn of the visitors. Ian Marshall and Neil Lennon took on the defence, and after exchanging the ball between themselves it was left to Lennon to easily tap the ball past a stranded Digby to restore their lead. The score remained at 2-1 to the visitors up to the half time break.

During the break O'Neill made what later proved to be a critical move, when he replaced Arphexad with first choice keeper Tim Flowers, having already replaced an injured Elliott with Gerry Taggart. During early play in the half he found that he had to replace Emile Heskey with Graham Fenton, and with 34 minutes left on the clock he had used all his substitutes. As these moves were taking place Steve Coppell used the time to replace David Woozley with Nick Rizzo, which turned out to be the only substitution we made all night. The moves seemed to pay off immediately for the visitors when within a minute Steve Guppy rose above the defence to head home the ball, and give them what appeared a lead that we could not bridge. Shortly after though the complexion of the game changed when Flowers went off with what appeared to be a shoulder injury.

With no further substitutes allowed Zagorakis took over in goal, and Palace turned on the pressure against the ten remaining visitors. With 71 minutes gone it was Fan Zhiyi who pulled one back, taking a free kick which flew into the top corner of the net, and shortly after Jamie Smith put in a good cross which Hayden Mullins managed to meet, neatly heading the equaliser.

Despite continued pressure the Foxes managed to hang on for the draw. We might well regret missing those opportunities come next week.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith, Andy Linighan, Dean Austin, David Woozley (Nick Rizzo 58), Simon Rodger, Hayden Mullins, Jose Fumaca, Fan Zhiyi, Clinton Morrison, Lee Bradbury.

Substitutes not used: Matthew Gregg, Steve Thomson, Matthias Svensson, Andrew Frampton.

Leicester City: Pegguy Arphexad (Tim Flowers 45), Matt Elliott (Gerry Taggart 20), Philip Gilchrist, Frank Sinclair, Steve Guppy, Muzzy Izzet, Neil Lennon, Robbie Savage, Theo Zagorakis, Emile Heskey (Graham Fenton), Ian Marshall.

Substitutes not used: Andrew Impey, Stefan Oakes.

Attendance: 5,006

Referee: Mr D R Elleray (Harrow-on-the-Hill).