Sheffield United - 1 (Nicholson 74.)
Crystal Palace - 3 (Smith 12. Freedman 78. Hopkin 90.)

Regular skipper Dean Austin found himself on the bench for the second successive match, so once again Hayden Mullins was named as captain. Palace very nearly caught out the home defence in the opening moments of the game when a long through ball from Hayden skipped through the goal area, with Dougie Freedman just unable to latch on to the end of the ball. What an opening that would have been!

A corner against us then saw a mad scramble in the box before Palace were able to clear the danger. As usual early in these matches there followed a little bit of to and fro before the match really seemed to settle down. Dougie managed to run himself into an offside position before, from nowhere, Jamie Smith scored what can only be described as a scrappy, but welcome, goal. Dougie made all the running before passing to Clinton Morrison, who was unfortunate to see the ball bounce off the legs of the keeper. The rebound though fell neatly to Jamie, and he sent in a shot that passed through the crowded goalmouth and went straight into the back of the net past the unsighted Simon Tracey.

A series of corners followed during which Julian Gray nearly scored a second for Palace before Shane Nicholson sent in a rocket shot that Matt Clarke did well to get to in time. In fact it was generally conceded that Matt did well to even see the ball, let alone pull off such a wonderful reflex save. The play now seemed to switch to all one-way traffic, unfortunately all one-way with the opposition doing the directing. Patrick Suffo sent in a shot that went just wide of the mark before Michael Brown sent in a cross that only found a bare patch of ground, the Sheffield attack inexplicably being missing.

Thirty minutes into the match something inexplicable happened. The referee, Mr Mark Cooper, who incidentally had come into this match as a late replacement for Mr Parkes, had to be replaced himself. The peculiar part of this story, as all Palace supporters would be aware, was that the identical thing happened in our last game, against Barnsley, on Saturday.

Palace then spent a lot of effort clearing a corner, which took two attempts before we got the ball down the other end where a late tackle on Clinton gave us a free kick. Nothing came of that move though, and the game drifted on until the half time break, where the sides went in for a well-deserved rest, and Palace held the slimmest of leads.

The second half got underway, and Palace showed immediately that they were not going to be content to just try and sit on their lead but were going to go all out to score a deciding blow to the home side's chances. Jovan tried for just that, the ball going over the top.

Dougie then tried to chip the ball over the advancing keeper. He succeeded in the first part, his chip clearing the keeper, but the ball just caught the top of the goal square and failed to find the back of the net. Chances followed at each end once again, but a mixture of astute defending and good keeping managed to keep the scoreline at the status quo. This was more than suitable for the visiting fans, of course, as we would be happy to hang on to a 1-0 lead for the rest of the evening. This might not be the prettiest of football, but at this stage of the season it is all about points accumulated.

Paul Devlin then showed why he is attracting interest from Palace, as well as a host of other Clubs. He made his way into the area, and if it had not been for a good tackle from Hayden we could well have been looking at an equaliser right there and then. Brown then missed from the resulting corner before United made a couple of substitutions, presumably in an effort to find that elusive equaliser. Julian made a good move down the left hand side of the field before losing the ball. A poor pass back to the keeper though almost let Dougie in before we conceded another free kick uncomfortably close to our end of the pitch. Shane Nicholson was the man that let rip a shot that appeared to be well covered by Matt, but at the last moment the ball took a wicked deflection and sailed into the opposite corner with Matt unable to change his direction through the goalmouth area.

Suddenly therefore, it was 1-1; would this be another match that Palace would throw away, like those played away of late?

Substitute Rob Kozluk got on the end of a good ball, but his shot was well dealt with by Matt, who once again looked good in goal. Clinton swept up the field before passing to Aki Riihilahti who played the ball straight on to Dougie. The keeper came out, and though the contact with Dougie appeared to be fairly light, it left the referee with a dilemma as to what he should award. I don't really see why this was a dilemma. If it was a foul, as the last line of defence the keeper has to be sent off; if it was not a foul then it is simply play-on. The ref consulted with the linesman and then awarded a yellow card to Simon Tracey, and pointed to the penalty spot. Surely this is not quite possible in the rules?

Nevertheless, Dougie picked himself up, placed the ball on the spot, and duly converted the chance to put us back in the lead. As almost invariably seems to be the case these days, having scored his goal Dougie was immediately replaced, this time by David Hopkin, making a welcome return to Palace colours following his injury in the first game of the season.

Peter Ndlovu sent an effort just wide of the post before Clinton sent a shot over the top of the bar at the opposite end of the pitch. Matt then really earned his wages for the night with a stupendous save from a wicked cross that came in. He somehow managed to snatch the ball off the foot of Ndlovu before he could take the chance to simply tap the ball into the back of the net.

There was, however, one more goal left in this match; but by the time it arrived most of the United fans had already left the ground, knowing that their side had still not managed to record a home win for the season.

The goal came much as it did in the play-off final all those years ago. Clinton passed a short ball to David on the edge of the area and he duly bundled the ball into the back of the net, just as he did on 26 May 1997. The timing was even about the same; somewhere just inside injury time.

Needless to say this goal totally broke the Sheffield spirit, and had there been any more time left on the clock Palace would almost certainly have scored again. As it was we had to settle for the 3-1 win, and I doubt if there is any Palace supporter out there who would not be happy with that. We now look forward to the visit of Sheffield Wednesday on Saturday, and hopefully another three points to take us towards the top of the table.

Steve Bruce will have taken great heart from the last three matches, with Palace posting three wins, scoring nine goals to only one conceded, and managing to move themselves up to sixth place in the League.

Here's hoping there is a lot more to come.

Colin Pryce

Sheffield United: Simon Tracey, Robert Page (Rob Kozluk 64), Shaun Murphy, Lee Sandford, Shane Nicholson, Paul Devlin, Bobby Ford, Michael Brown, Philip Jagielka, Carl Asaba (Paul Peschisolido 79), Patrick Suffo (Peter Ndlovu 64).

Substitutes not used: Nick Montgomery, Wilko de Vogt.

Crystal Palace: Matt Clarke, Jamie Smith, Steve Vickers, Tony Popovic, Julian Gray, Hayden Mullins, Aki Riihilahti, Jovan Kirovski (Dean Austin 90), Simon Rodger, Dougie Freedman (David Hopkin 79), Clinton Morrison.

Substitutes not used: Tommy Black, Steve Thomson, Alex Kolinko.

Attendance: 14,180

Referee: Mr M Cooper (Walsall)