Crystal Palace - 0
Fulham - 0

A fair crowd was on hand to witness a match with very few opportunities to score presented by either side. Fulham have got into the habit of appearing in scoreless draws, and unfortunately our strikers were not up to putting enough pressure on the visitors to really test them.

Palace started the more positive of the two sides, and the first attempt came when Jamie Smith ran half the length of the pitch before firing a shot at goal. His attempt went wide. Terry Phelan then made another of his good crosses that the Palace faithful have become accustomed to, but Maik Taylor just managed to snuff out the opportunity, with Matthias Svensson waiting to pounce. Simon Rodger then missed a chance at goal before Fulham had their first shot. And a good shot it was. Lee Clark fired a great shot at goal, but somehow Dean Austin got in the way and the ball fell easily for Fraser Digby to effect the save.

The first half seemed to be over in the twinkling of an eye, and both sides would have been reasonably pleased with their efforts - though perhaps starting to worry about where their first goal was going to come from.

If the number of attempts on goal seemed somewhat miserly in the first half, then the second half was even worse. It took until 15 minutes from the end before Paul Peschisolido put his shot wide and then Clark ended up placing his shot straight at Fraser, who really had nothing further to do in the match. Much as had little to do in the second period of play Taylor had even less to do, with no real recorded attempt coming at the visitors end for the entire 45 minutes.

Palace will really have to find a way of breaking such deadlocks in the future if we are to ensure that we do not get dragged down to the relegation zone over the second half of the season.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Jamie Smith (Wayne Carlisle 88), Fan Zhiyi, Dean Austin, Andy Linighan, Terry Phelan, Craig Foster, Hayden Mullins, Simon Rodger, Leon McKenzie, Matthias Svensson.

Substitutes not used: David Woozley, Nick Rizzo, James Hibburt, Steve Mautone.

Fulham: Maik Taylor, Steve Finnan, Andy Melville, Kit Symons, Simon Morgan, Rufus Brevett, Sean Davis (Wayne Collins 51), Lee Clark, Steve Hayward, Barry Hayles, Paul Peschisolido.

Substitutes not used: Paul Trollope, Marcus Hahnemann, Gus Uhlenbeek, Paul Brooker.

Attendance: 17,480

Referee: Mr D Pugh (Bebington).