Port Vale - 1 (Tankard 40.)
Crystal Palace - 0

With transfer rumours rife, and with money said to be still short, I guess we cannot expect too much from the team at the moment. Having said that one would really expect them to take at least a point from opposition such as this, and the fact that they did not means that the team are now only two wins away from the relegation zone. As the form continues to dip, it seems hard to imagine that they are going to manage to keep their home record intact, and the visit of Barnsley next weekend could be very telling in the final wash up. It is also hard to imagine that at the start of the season everything looked so rosy, and every Palace supporter was looking for someone to take their money so that they could back Palace to win the League! The bookies would be giving very skinny odds these days about our chances of survival! The result of this match certainly helped Port Vale as they managed to jump just out of the relegation zone. For a while there it looked as though we might drop two places in the table, but a couple of late goals by Portsmouth saw Swindon held to a draw, and us only losing one position on the table. We will have to look for a win next week to keep ourselves clear of the zone.

The match was the fourth for Vale since Brian Horton took over the reins of the Club from John Rudge, and it was his second win, whilst Steve Coppell is still looking for his first victory this time around at the helm. The first shot on goal came when Wayne Corden found Craig Russell close to the goal line, but he pulled his shot wide of the mark. Obviously both sides were nervous about this game, as there were no further attempts on goal for nearly half an hour. Once the chances started to come again though, they were, unfortunately, all in the wrong direction. Kevin Miller badly missed a corner, but the home side failed to take advantage, then Miller made amends when he made a great dive to his right to keep out a certain goal from Allen Tankard. Clinton Morrison and Fan Zhiyi then combined well, but failed to take advantage of a promising move. Tankard was not to be denied though. Five minutes before the break Tony Rougier took a great pass from Russell, the move only being stopped by a last moment sliding tackle from Gordan Petric. The corner that resulted though was headed by Tankard against the post, and after the ball rolled agonisingly along the line it finally crossed over to settle into the back of the net. The half time break came, and once again we were one down.

The second half was again notable only for the lack of chances on goal. Marcus Bent failed to take advantage of a good move to put the game beyond our reach, but he need not really have worried, as we never looked like being a great threat of pulling a goal back. Despite the fact that Steve brought on all the substitutes, things did not seem to improve. A couple of late chances came to nothing, and we were left to face the trek home once again with nothing to show for the afternoon's endeavour. On this performance, and in fairness to Port Vale, that is about all we really deserved!

Colin Pryce

Port Vale: Musselwhite, Beesley (Talbot 70), Tankard, Bogie, Aspin, Gardner, Rougier, Corden (Jansson 87), Bent (Eyre 81), Barker, Russell.
Not Used: None.

Crystal Palace: Miller, Smith, Petric, Fullarton, Moore, Linighan, Foster, Fan (Evans 55), McKenzie (Sun 75), Morrison, Mullins (Tuttle 85).
Not Used: None.

Attendance: 6,051
Referee: Mr R Pearson (Peterlee).