December 5 2007

Clinton Morrison

Crystal Palace continued their unbeaten run with a much improved 2nd half performance to beat QPR 2-1, writes Simon Pophale.

It is a well worn phrase that “football is a game of two halves”.

At Loftus Road this was never more evident as QPR showed the spirit they may need in what is looking ever more increasingly like a relegation battle, but Palace came back to underpin another adage “a good team is one that can play badly and win”.

Neil Warnock made again only one change, bringing in Danny Butterfield at right-back. Sean Scannell made the bench along with Lee Hills.

The first half started with an immediate chance for FRANCK Songo’o but the on-loan midfielder could only shoot straight at Lee Camp.

The first chance that fell to the home side, was on 9 minutes when a corner from Akos Buszacky found an unchecked and unchallenged Damion Stewart in the box who headed home easily to open the scoring.

QPR then began to play with more confidence and Julian Speroni had to be alert as first the impressive Ben Sahar found Rowan Vine but Speroni pulled off a fine one handed save.

Another on-loan player Scott Sinclair crossed dangerously on 15 minutes but Speroni claimed the ball from the boot of Vine as QPR threatened to go further in front.

We had only one notable effort in the whole of the first half, which came on 39 minutes when a Ben Watson free kick whistled past Lee Camp, but wide of the post.

Warnock had seen enough. He brought on Hills at half-time for Jose Fonte and while this may not have reaped instant rewards, the young defenders willingness to get forward and inject some pace into the side seemed to wake up the dormant players.

Scannell was next to arrive on 59 minutes and shortly after this, we hauled ourselves into this match.

Ben Watson sent a shot wide courtesy of a deflection and from the resultant corner, Clint Hill prodded the ball home on 65 minutes.

Better still, with us now pressuring Rangers, another Watson corner 2 minutes later saw Hudson head the ball across the 6 yard area, Camp may have gotten a touch but it fell to Clinton Morrison who scored his 6 goal in 5 matches to make it 2-1.

QPR threw on substitutions, but the youthful exuberance of Hills and Scannell and tireless work of players like Scowcroft and Morrison was restricting QPR and saw us take the majority of possession.

So, when Scowcroft charged down a Camp goal kick and he found himself having to rush out of the box to clear the ball. Warnock rushed down out of his technical area to try to retrieve it.

A quick throw in and we had an open goal. Camp then obstructed the play by timewasting and following plenty of argy-bargy, Warnock ended up being sent to the stand.

As time ticked down, QPR could not muster another shot on target and we celebrated our 7th match unbeaten at the final whistle. We are now upwardly mobile again, while QPR were left looking up at the rest of the division from last place.

Palace: Speroni, Butterfield, Hudson, Fonte (Hills 52), Hill, Soares (Fletcher 73), Watson, Derry, Songo'o (Scannell 60), Scowcroft, Morrison.

Not Used: Freedman, Martin.