August 31 2003

Steve Kember

Steve Kember felt Palace were hard done by following their fifth red card of this season in the 1-1 draw away to Millwall.

Tommy Black was sent off in the second half after picking up two yellows and Palace nearly held on for victory until Millwall levelled in injury time.

Kember told the official site: "Once again I was not happy with the sending off, Tommy was dismissed for two innocuous challenges.

"I have been disappointed with all the decisions this season which have seen us lose players in games, we are not a team who go onto the pitch with any intentions and in fact have ended up losing players for trivial matters."

He went on to praise the new team spirit which is evident at the club and youngster Ben Watson who opened the scoring with a top free-kick.

He said: "I felt the boys did well ever so well in this match and in the end left the pitch disappointed at losing the late goal but I must admit I would have settled for a point at the start considering the players that were missing.

"The lads showed great spirit once again particularly when we were down to ten men but I do think that we can still play better than we performed today, our passing probably let us down at times over the ninety minutes.

"I was pleased for Ben Watson to get the goal; he is a good player who still at only 18 years of age is really catching the eye.

"I had a word with him at half-time and said that if we get any of those free kicks around the box he should take them so it was good to see him use his talent with dead ball situations pay off.

He added: "As I say it was disappointing to lose the lead so late on and I am not really sure where five minutes of injury time came from but credit to Millwall who kept coming at us and got their reward.

"We now have a break from league action which will give those injured players a chance to come back and an opportunity for others to get fully fit who had to play today without having trained in the week due to knocks and niggles."