Sheffield United - 1 (Suffo 51.)
Crystal Palace - 0

One thing that will be said about this match is that this time there is no chance that Simon Jordan will be offering a refund to the Palace fans that made the long journey north once again. This match, though the score was the same, at least saw patches of individual flair from the Palace players, and overall was a much better display than that which was witnessed at Barnsley last Tuesday. All we need now is for Alan Smith to take our "strikers" out in front of the goal and "teach" them to put the ball in the back of the net!

Two games without a strike is a bit much for the Palace supporters to put up with, though this really has been caused by our good record over the last few months, at least in terms of goal scoring. Of the teams outside the promotion play-off places only Wimbledon has scored more goals than Palace, so we have come to expect the team to score, albeit they may let in more than they get!

We now have four matches in a row at Selhurst Park, including the away fixture with Wimbledon, so our support, and hopefully form, should improve from here.

The first real incident in this match came not with an attempt on goal, but a clash of heads between Dean Austin and Robert Ullathorne. Fortunately, from Palace's point of view, Dean was fine, but Ullathorne was forced to leave the field of play for treatment, and though he returned shortly after he was forced to go off after the break, unable to continue.

The opening attempts on goal all belonged to United, with Paul Peschisolido, Laurent D'Jaffo and Paul Devlin all going close. Palace looked likely to score shortly after when Hayden Mullins found himself with only the keeper to beat from eight yards out, but he sliced his shot wide of the mark. Bobby Ford then took a shot from well out that was off target and Shaun Murphy sent in a good header that Alex Kolinko did well to keep out.

Palace then went to a period of looking the side more likely to score. Tommy Black did well to steer the ball to Clinton Morrison, who put his shot wide, then a few minutes later Clinton clearly beat Simon Tracey to the ball, a last minute clearance off the line being effected by Robbie Kozluk.

As half time was about to arrive D'Jaffo crossed for Patrick Suffo to attempt a shot on goal, but once again the ball was wide of the mark, and the players trooped off the field of play with the score all locked up at 0-0. Alan Smith would have been reasonably pleased with the performance of his players, but he must have been starting to wonder when our next goal will come.

The second half saw the early substitution of Peschisolido for Nick Montgomery, and within a minute or two, United were in the lead. A good move by D'Jaffo found Paul Devlin, who was by far the best player on the field for the home side. Getting round the defence he crossed the ball and Suffo made no mistake, hitting the ball sweetly past a despairing Alex in goal.

They really should have made it 2-0 shortly after, when D'Jaffo made a mess of an opportunity presented to him by a poor clearance, but then Palace turned up the pressure once more. A shot from Hayden was well saved by the keeper after it had taken a deflection from a defender, and though Palace seemed to be making all the running the home defence was performing well in repelling all attacks.

D'Jaffo again wasted a chance for United to kill off the game, this time just heading over the top of the bar, but the best opportunity for Palace to equalise was to appear in injury time. Tommy made a good run before centering the ball where Andrejs Rubins took a snap shot at the ball that ended up hitting the top of the crossbar, with Tracey well beaten.

There was hardly time for the game to restart before the final whistle went, and once again Palace had travelled north and returned without a point to their name. Surely the upcoming matches will see a turn of fortune for the Club, and we will hopefully see them turn the threat of relegation battles into a thing of the distant past.

Colin Pryce

Sheffield United: Simon Tracey, Robbie Kozluk, Shaun Murphy, Keith Curle, Robert Ullathorne (Nick Montgomery 50), Paul Devlin, Michael Brown, Georges Santos, Bobby Ford, Paul Peschisolido (Patrick Suffo 23, David Kelly 77), Laurent D'Jaffo.

Substitutes not used: Andy Woodward, Phil Jagielka.

Crystal Palace: Alex Kolinko, Jamie Smith, Dean Austin, Gregg Berhalter, Andrew Frampton (Dougie Freedman 71), Simon Rodger, Tommy Black, Steve Thomson, Hayden Mullins (Wayne Carlisle 84), Clinton Morrison, Mikael Forssell (Andrejs Rubins 71).

Substitutes not used: Ricardo Fuller, Julian Gray.

Attendance: 18,924

Referee: Mr A Hall (Birmingham)