Palace 1 - 1 Derby County

Tue Oct 14 2003 - League

A 1-1 draw against Derby County was all Palace could muster as they finished yet another match with ten men.

Match Stats

Ground: Selhurst Park (Attendance: 14344) Palace: Berthelin, Fleming, Symons, Powell (sent off 90), Butterfield, Derry, Hughes (Watson,84), Black, Shipperley, Freedman, Routledge Subs not used: Riihilahti, Borrowdale, Williams, Cronin Bookings: Fleming, Powell. Sent off: Powell 90. Goal: Butterfield 45 Derby County: Oakes, Jackson, Johnson (Elliott, 54), Mills, Zavagno, Valakari, Taylor, Huddlestone, Candido, Costa, Holmes, Morris (Tudgay, 45) Subs not used: Grant, Bolder, Boertien Goal: Zavagno 74 Referee: P Armstrong (Thatcham)

Darren Powell was shown the red card by referee Armstrong in the final minute.

Just before the half-time break it was Danny Butterfield who opened the scoring from a cross by Michael Hughes.

But unfortunately for the Eagles, Derby equalised 17 minutes before the full-time whistle through Luciano Zavagno.

Once again it was the usual story. Palace had most of the possession in thefirst 45 minutes and created chances which they failed to put away.

They should have been at least two up by half-time, then a fluke goal, from what was clearly intended as a cross wouldn't have mattered. They didn't put Derby under the same kind of pressure in the second half but still created chances and should have put at least one away.

Palace need to strengthen up the defence. There's no suitable replacement for Popovic and now we are going to loose Powell as well for at least a game. The problem with the Palace squad is that there's no strength in depth and when key players are injured or off form we fall apart.

We need to sign a player who can control the game from midfield and a striker who can bring the ball down first time and shoot.

Without these improvements I predict more of the same over the next few games when realistically we should have expected to get 12 points from 12 out of the last 2 games and the next two, all at home.

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