Palace 2 - 0 Grimsby Town
Sat Nov 23 2002 - League
Crystal Palace got back to winning ways after a 2-0 win over Grimsby Town at Selhurst Park.
Palace started as usual, not doing too badly, but nothing special for the first few minutes.
Match Stats
Ground: Selhurst Park (Attendance: 20093)
Palace: Kolinko, Butterfield, Symons, Mullins, Johnson (Williams, 81), Derry, Gray (Borrowdale, 89), Thomson, Black (Riihilahti, 61), Adebola, Powell
Subs not used: Michopoulos, Antwi
Booking: Derry
Goals: Derry 39, Adebola 61
Grimsby Town: Coyne, McDermott (Parker, 64), Gallimore, Ford, Campbell, Coldicott (Groves, 70), Pouton, Gavin, Oster, Mansaram, Livingstone (Soames, 83)
Subs not used: Allaway, Barnard
Booking: Oster
Referee: Trevor Parkes (Birmingham)
The first tester for Grimsby keeper Danny Coyne was Darren Powell's well struck shot after ten minutes which just cleared the crossbar.
It was a superb piece of skill from the centre back, who, in my opinion, is the best buy so far this year.
Palace started to take a bit more control of the game as Grimsby were starting to remember the 5-0 loss to Palace last year, as Steven Thomson found himself on the edge of the area with loads of space, but his shot narrowly missed the target.
After starting to lose control of the game, Grimsby managed to claw their way back into the match as John Oster almost caught Alex Kolinko by suprise from a Grimsby corner.
Luckily the Palace keeper reacted quick enough to save.
In the 40th minute Shaun Derry picked up the ball on the edge of the area after some sloppy defending from Grimsby and shot at the opposition's goal.
This shot first looked off target, but took a massive deflection which left Coyne with nothing to do as it bobbled into the corner of the net. This took a lot of pressure of Palace, who were struggling in the opening half.
Grimsby responded to Derry's goal positively and Kolinko made a fantastic save to deny Stuart Campbell's strike and maintain Palace's lead at half-time.
Grimsby came out in the second half looking a stronger team, and nearly pulled level after Alan Pouton's free kick was saved superbly by Alex Kolinko at the second attempt on 51 minutes.
But Palace always kept on the pressure as some neat passing from the Palace midfield left Dele Adebola through with just the goalie to beat.
He latched onto a fine through ball and fired to the goalies left into the bottom corner.
It was a great goal for Palace and Adebola, who desperately needs some goals to keep the confidence coming back to him after almost a year outinjured last year.
Derry almost scored his second of the afternoon only to be denied by the woodwork from a delightful 25-yard free-kick.
The goalie was beaten but the crossbar just got in the way to stop what would have been a superb goal.
The Mariners finished the game the stronger side but were reduced to a smattering of long-range efforts due to Palace's makeshift back four dissolving most of Grimsby's chances.
Post match comments:
Trevor Francis said: "Although we did not play that well it was important we did a professional job and took the points.
"We worked hard in midfield without being spectacular and reduced them to just a handful of chances.
 Although we did not play that well it was important we did a professional job and took the points  |
| Trevor Francis |
"When you play Grimsby you expect to win, and it took a while for our players to get motivated.
"Grimsby are well-organised and showed a good attitude but we produced a solid performance and got the right result.
"I felt Grimsby had too much of the ball at the start of the second half and I was forced to change the formation to 4-4-2. It got us the result in the end."
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