Crystal Palace - 1 (Forssell 34.)
Norwich City - 1 (Pollock og 55.)
The poor pitch contributed to the opening exchanges, and though Mikael Forssell's shot from a tight angle was well smothered by keeper Andy Marshall neither side really looked like scoring. More than half-an-hour had passed before the crowd was suddenly galvanised to life when Alex Kolinko pumped a long kick up field. His long-range ball found Dougie Freedman on the edge of the area, and once he had chested the ball down he simply played it into the path of an advancing Mikael who made no mistake, burying the ball in the back of the net.
Despite Zema Abbey having a shot well saved by Alex earlier in the match it was starting to look as though the match was going to be settled by that solitary goal, though Dougie did come close when he tried to lob the keeper when his better option may well have been to pass once again to the unmarked Forssell.
So the half time break arrived, and we held on to our slender lead; but it was obvious that we were missing the talents of Clinton Morrison up front; he will certainly be a welcome sight on Tuesday.
The start of the second half saw a great move by Andrejs Rubins down the left, his cross just eluding Dougie who surely would have finished off the match had he managed to get a foot to the ball. A bizarre goal then went the visitors way when Darel Russell unleashed a good shot that Alex had well covered, but the ball took a wicked deflection off Craig Harrison, and the wrong-footed keeper could do nothing but watch the ball sail into the back of the net. The scores were level, but there was still some 35 minutes left in this match for us to find the winner.
Almost immediately Dougie put in a header that flew over the bar, and ten minutes later he managed to send his shot wide of the mark, the ball coming off the side of his foot. Abbey then had a chance to steal all the points, but he managed to also drag his shot wide. Then came the "brawl" that may well cost both sides.
The man who will certainly try to claim the second goal of the match, Darel Russell, fouled Jamie Smith; but it was Jamie Pollock that stepped in to "sort" things out. This turned into a free for all, though Alan Smith later tried to describe the incident as "handbags". The foul that Russell committed would never have seen him sent off, but his retaliation to Pollock's intervention certainly did, though it also saw marching orders given to Pollock. Taking into account both side's disciplinary records this year the event could well cost both sides a fair sum when the FA get round to reviewing the matter!
The incident seemed to stop all goalmouth action for the remainder of the match, and Norwich went home presumably more pleased with their point than Palace would have been with theirs. We now go on to Barnsley this Tuesday, and hopefully we can extend our recent impressive away from home.
Colin Pryce
Crystal Palace: Alex Kolinko, Jamie Smith, Dean Austin, Craig Harrison, Simon Rodger, Julian Gray, Andrejs Rubins, Jamie Pollock, Mikael Forssell, Hayden Mullins, Dougie Freedman (Steven Kabba 89).
Substitutes not used: Steve Thomson, Wayne Carlisle, Gregg Berhalter, Tommy Black.
Norwich City: Andy Marshall, Daryl Sutch, Lee Marshall, Matt Jackson, Darren Kenton, Steen Nedergaard (Adrian Forbes 70), Darel Russell, Malcolm Mackay, Iwan Roberts, Chris Llewellyn, Zema Abbey.
Substitutes not used: Robert Green, Jean Yves de Blasiis, Paul McVeigh, Brian McGovern.
Attendance: 16,417
Referee: Mr B Curson (Walsall)