Crystal Palace - 1 (Rodger 62.)
Queens Park Rangers - 1 (Steiner 76.)

With players such as Attilio Lombardo, Fan Zhiyi, Sun Jihai and Craig Moore still missing, not to mention people such as Matthias Svensson and others; and despite that the general consensus that seems to agree that Palace are playing poorly; it is quite amazing that the side are still managing to achieve the results that they have got recently. Given any luck a few of those players will be back with the side very shortly, and if we can only have a good Christmas and New Year period things could well be looking up for the second half of the season. Despite the fact that this really should have been a three point match for Palace the fact that they achieved a point under such difficult circumstances is a credit to the side. Still, enough of this, let's get on with the game!

The first thing that most alert supporters noted was that Terry Venables was missing from the dug out. He missed the previous match against Sunderland too, because his father was unwell. Unfortunately his father passed away during the week, and our thoughts go out to him at this time.

The first chance of the match fell to Antti Heinola who placed his shot into the side netting. Kevin Gallen then brought out a good save from Kevin Miller. Not to be outdone Matt Jansen had a good opportunity, but put his shot over the bar, which was followed by a good save from Ludek Miklosko. Jansen's next advance on goal proved that he is aware of what is going on around him when he played a sweet shot to Craig Foster who was too slow to the ball to make the shot count. Rangers actually had the ball in the back of the net after 33 minutes, but the shot was ruled offside. One more chance, once again to Gallen, saw the half come to an end, and though Rangers looked the slightly better side we had certainly had our chances.

Two spectacular saves by Miller early in the second half were more than enough to convince most watchers that he had to be the player of the match. A good shot from Jansen hit the post, and it was only good defending that kept Lee Bradbury away from the rebound. Our moment was about to arrive though. With a "never say die" attitude Sagi Burton chased the ball all the way to the line, and managed to hook it back at the last moment. Simon Rodger, charging forward, managed to convert the pass from a very tight angle past the despairing keeper, and suddenly we were 1-0 up. Though Palace went into a more defensive mode a corner found its' way to an unmarked Robert Steiner who made no mistake putting the ball into the back of the net. Steiner really should have got his second moments from the full time whistle, but once again Miller ensured that we would at least get a point from the match. The next match is on Boxing Day, here's hoping that this will be the start of a good second half to the season.

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Miller, Crowe, Smith, Burton, Linighan, Mullins, Foster, Rodger, Rizzo (Curcic 76), Bradbury (Morrison 86), Jansen.
Not Used: Petric.

Queens Park Rangers: Miklosko, Heinola, Baraclough, Morrow, Ready, Maddix (Rowland 76), Rose, Peacock, Sheron, Gallen, Murray (Steiner 64).
Not Used: Kulcsar

Attendance: 17,684
Referee: Mr M Pierce (Portsmouth).