April 12 2004

Dougie Freedman

Palace continued their impressive last-minute dash for the play-offs with a 1-0 win at home to West Ham.

West Ham enjoyed much of the early possession with their prolific strike partnership of Connoly and Harewood creating some early chances.

Yet the biting jaws of the West Ham attack were sedated on 36 minutes, when David Connoly was sent off for a second bookable offence.

This tamed the West Ham threat and allowed Crystal Palace to gain confidence, spreading intricate passing moves across the pitch.

Wingers Gray and Routledge penetrated the West Ham defence feeding off the midfield dominance of Michael Hughes. The match was contested at a frantic pace threatening to boil over at certain points, resulting in several bookings.

Crystal Palace took the lead on 65 minutes when Dougie Freedman connected with a ricocheting corner. Palace then increased the pressure, creating several chances that forced impressive saves from Pavel Srnicek.

With the gaping hole left in the usually potent West Ham attack, the irons merely had to weather the Crystal Palace storm, denying Andy Johnson from increasing his impressive goal tally.

Palace manager Ian Dowie was delighted with the victory, but keen to look ahead to his next fixtures: “We’ve got a huge week coming up with games against Wigan and Sunderland so if we do make the play-offs, we’ll be doing it the hard way.”

Matt Hepburn

Crystal Palace: Vaesen, Granville, Popovic, Hudson, Butterfield, Gray, Hughes, Riihilahti, Routledge, Johnson, Freedman.

Subs: Derry, Black, Leigertwood, Soares, Berthelin.

West Ham Utd.: Srnicek, Ferdinand, Repka, Dailly, Harley, McAnuff, Reo-Coker, Mullins, Horlock, Harewood, Connolly.

Subs: Melville, Zamora, Deane, Cohen, Forde.