Crystal Palace - 3 (Hall 5. Johnson 12. 50.)
West Bromwich Albion - 0

This match, between two of the promoted sides from last season, was always going to be a crunch game. Both sides would have been desperate to get the three points on offer, as a win here would take them just that little further away from the relegation zone, and for Palace that was probably more important, as they were currently propping up the rest of the table.

Palace named an unchanged side from the team that lost narrowly to Bolton Wanderers last week, and in fact only made one change on the bench, replacing Shaun Derry with Sandor Torghelle.

The game got underway, and it was not long before Andy Johnson (the Palace one, that is, not the West Brom one - hereinafter referred to as AJ) won a free kick that Wayne Routledge sent in, with Danny Granville sending his header straight to the keeper.

Two minutes later though, Palace did make the most of a forward move, with Wayne once again providing the cross, this time indirectly from a corner, and Fitz Hall got his head to the ball to send the home fans jumping for joy as it sailed past Russell Hoult into the visitors goal, and we were 1-0 up, with only five minutes played. Moments later the ball was down the other end, and as Gabor Kiraly failed to clear a corner Darren Moore headed the ball over the top of the crossbar, when he really should have done much better.

It was not very much later than this that Joonas Kolkka got the ball into the path of AJ, but as he went to fire the ball home he was brought down, right in front of the goalmouth, by Martin Albrechtsen, and the referee had little option other than to award a penalty. AJ stepped up, and as the keeper went to his right the ball was slammed the other way, and we were 2-0 up after only 12 minutes of play.

Little further action followed until West Bromwich decided to make their first change, taking off Albrechtsen, and bringing on Jonathon Greening. Michael Hughes managed to get the ball to AJ once more, but the keeper made a fine save, taking the ball off AJ's feet, and then both the Andy Johnson's clashed, our AJ coming off the worse, as he was the one booked for his trouble. Moore was booked shortly after for a foul on Joonas, and before we knew what had happened the half time whistle had sounded, and we were off for the oranges and water, or whatever it is that they give to the players theses days.

One can be absolutely certain that Iain Dowie would have been delighted with the first half performance, and would simply have been asking for more of the same in the second period of play.

Riccardo Scimeca played a good ball into the centre of our area, and as Robert Earnshaw struck the ball everyone waited for the offside call. It did not come, but much to the relief of the Palace faithful the ball hit the bar and bounced safely away from our area. Joonas then got the ball to AJ, almost at the halfway line, and as AJ ran at the defence they backed off until he fired his shot, from distance, and the ball eluded the keeper, hit the post, and bounced into the back of the net on the opposite side. 3-0 to Palace, and surely now there was no way back for our visitors.

Earnshaw got clear on goal again, but Gabor was equal to the task, snatching the ball to safety before Paul Robinson was awarded a yellow card, for his crude tackle on Wayne. Palace took Michael off in favour of Vassilios Lakis, and later in the match they replaced Joonas with Dougie Freedman and Ben with Gonzalo Sorondo.

There was only time for one more piece of action, as Vassilios got a great cross in to AJ, but our prolific striker was unable to convert the chance, and we had to settle for the score as it stood. Still, a 3-0 win every week we would gladly take, every time. Everyone, at least those associated with Palace, would have gone home happy with the performance, and we now all looked forward to the short trip across to visit Charlton Athletic in the Carling Cup on Wednesday evening. With confidence this high, almost anything could happen!

Colin Pryce

Crystal Palace: Gabor Kiraly, Emmerson Boyce, Danny Granville, Fitz Hall, Tony Popovic, Ben Watson (Gonzalo Sorondo 83), Aki Riihilahti, Michael Hughes (Vassilios Lakis 69), Joonas Kolkka (Dougie Freedman 80), Wayne Routledge, Andy Johnson.

Substitutes not used: Julian Speroni, Sandor Torghelle.

West Bromwich Albion: Russell Hoult, Martin Albrechtsen (Jonathan Greening 24), Thomas Gaardsoe, Bernt Haas, Darren Moore, Paul Robinson, Riccardo Scimeca, Andy Johnson, Robert Earnshaw, Zoltan Gera, Nwankwo Kanu.

Substitutes not used: Tomasz Kuszczak, Junichi Inamoto, Geoff Horsfield, Rob Hulse.

Attendance: 22,922

Referee: Mr M Messias