Crewe 2-2 Palace

October 29 2005

Dougie Freedman

Crystal Palace were close to a win at Crewe but an injury-time equaliser left Iain Dowie's men with only one point in a 2-2 draw.

Palace started brightly but were left shell shocked after Steve Jones was played in behind our defence and provided a good finish to make it 1-0.

In a half in which Palace were by far the more dominant team, even a blistering strike from Michael Hughes which was expertly saved by Crewe keeper Ben Williams couldn’t break the deadlock.

Fitz Hall was left wondering what might have been after being gifted a golden opportunity 1 minute before half time but incredibly missed from 3 yards out.

Palace started the 2nd half in the same fashion as they finished the first and it didn’t take long for them to finally break the deadlock as a Michael Hughes cross was scooped into the net by Dougie Freedman, and Palace finally took the lead in the 65th minute when Borrowdale was released up the left and crossed for Morrison to head Palace ahead.

4 minutes later however Palace fans were left shocked after Kiraly produced a wonderful save from Steve Jones who looked certain to score. Kiraly, however injured himself in the process and had to be stretchered off with what appeared to be a broken wrist, giving Speroni the opportunity to make a name for himself.

As the game wore on though Crewe started to come back into it and nearly equalized but a Steve Jones free kick was denied by an absolutely stunning save from Julian Speroni.

Crewe however got their reward for a sustain period of attacking after it was announced that there would be 7 minutes of injury time and in the 3rd minute of that time a cross was floated over for Michael Higdon to superbly head into the back of the net to make the final score 2-2.

Palace will be disappointed not to win considering the number of chances we had.

Crewe Alexandra: B Williams, P Bignot, S Foster, B Jones, A Tonkin, G Roberts, J Cochrane, K Lunt, D Vaughan, S Jones, M Higdon.

Subs: S Tomlinson, R Walker, M Rivers, E Johnson, L Rodgers.

Crystal Palace: G Kiraly, D Butterfield, D Ward, F Hall, E Boyce, M Reich, B Watson, T Soares, M Hughes, D Freedman, C Morrison.

Subs: M Hudson, J McAnuff, G Borrowdale, W Andrews, J Speroni.

Referee: M Dean.

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