Queens Park Rangers - 0
Crystal Palace - 1 (Morrison 69.)

The last time that these two sides met, at Selhurst Park, Queens Park Rangers had gone nine games without defeat, and were looking good for a play off position at least. Palace put a stop to that with a thumping 3-0 win. This time round Rangers were once again on a nine match unbeaten run, and we also had a 6-0 trouncing that we wished to avenge. With the transfer deadline day meaning that Palace could well be missing a few players come Saturday's Charlton game, we really had everything to play for, and that is without taking into account the proximity of the relegation zone.

Mr Pugh commenced proceedings, and within five minutes the visiting Palace side showed that they meant business when Hayden Mullins forced his way past two defenders and fired a shot that went narrowly wide. Andy Linighan was the next to attempt a shot on goal, with a trademark header being cleared on the line by Mark Perry. This signalled a wake up call to the home side, with both Mikkel Beck and Chris Kiwomya testing Fraser Digby in goal. Approaching the halfway mark Fraser missed a header by Beck, but Steve Thomson was on hand to clear the danger.

Shortly after a shot by Mikael Forssell was pushed wide of the mark when Lee Harper missed the ball, and then the save of the match came from Fraser following an Ian Baraclough strike.

The second half seemed to be serving up much the same as the first, and it was Ashley Cole that made a run up field, his pass just failing to find Mikael. Leon McKenzie was the next to test the home defence, with an equally inspiring run that led, unfortunately, to a poor shot that went straight to the keeper.

Beck hit a couple of headers that really did not test the Palace back line, and then Karl Ready sent a shot over the bar, and despite changing their frontline men, the home side seemed to be making no real progress.

Thomson then sent in a good cross that found McKenzie who passed the ball on to Clinton, whose shot was well plucked out of the air by Harper. A minute later though Clinton was once again in the action when Thomson sent Wayne Carlisle down the sideline. Dean Austin headed his cross across the goal and this time Clinton was on hand at the six-yard box to steer the ball home, and finally gave us the lead.

With little goalmouth action for the rest of the match the visiting Palace fans were left to bite their nails right up to the final whistle. It was three points hard won.

It is now on to a very testing home fixture on Saturday against League leaders Charlton, and an unexpected win could well see Palace very close to that magical 50 points that Steve Coppell has been talking about for months now. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that we still have the current squad come that day, and that there is still plenty of goals to come, with perhaps a few from Mikael?

Colin Pryce

Queens Park Rangers: Lee Harper, Mark Perry, Ian Baraclough, Karl Ready, Matthew Rose, Chris Plummer (George Kulcsar 16), Paul Murray (Kevin Gallen 71), Richard Langley (Gareth Taylor 71), Stuart Wardley, Mikkel Beck, Chris Kiwomya.

Substitutes not used: Ludek Miklosko, Tony Scully.

Crystal Palace: Fraser Digby, Dean Austin, Hayden Mullins, Fan Zhiyi, Mikael Forssell (Andrew Martin 86), Clinton Morrison, Steve Thomson, Ashley Cole, Andy Linighan, Wayne Carlisle, Leon McKenzie.

Substitutes not used: Matthew Gregg, David Woozley, Craig Foster, James Hibburt.

Attendance: 12,842

Referee: Mr D Pugh (Bebington).