January 28 2007

FA Cup

Crystal Palace were dumped out of the FA Cup at the same stage by the same team as last season as Preston scored two second half goals in front of a sparse Selhurst Park crowd, writes Simon Pophale.

From the moment the draw was made, collective apathy saw that the crowd was only around the 8,500 mark, with Preston bringing the few hundred.

Peter Taylor brought in Jamie Scowcroft and Clinton Morrison up front, while adding Danny Butterfield to the line-up in place of Leon Cort. Paul Simpson rested Sean St Ledger and gave Micheal Ricketts a start, while dropping former Palace goalkeeper Carlo Nash after his transfer request was rejected.

The 1st half was one-way traffic in our favour, yet we spurned a number of good chances to take the lead. Our best chances came from set pieces as two Mark Kennedy corners saw both Carl Fletcher and Mark Hudson head wide of the target when unmarked in the box.

Andy Lonergan made a great double save on 30 minutes after he parried a Jamie Scowcroft shot after a deflection off Liam Chilvers and then, with Clinton Morrison advancing to shoot into the almost empty net, he stuck out an arm to deflect the ball wide.

The best Preston could manage all half was a wayward effort from Micheal Ricketts, which drifted harmlessly wide of the right hand post after a shot from the edge of the penalty area.

Despite the best efforts of the Holmesdale fanatics, the atmosphere was staid and from the 2nd half kick off, it fell eerily silent as after a 45 yard run on the left, David Nugent, who had done nothing all game, cut inside and unleashed a shot into the far corner past an advancing Flinders.

Preston began to dominate the game and Flinders became more and more the busier keeper as the half progressed. Carl Fletcher tried to keep his scoring run going after hitting another 25 yard drive which Lonergan turned away for a corner.

But, despite Taylor bringing on Freedman, Kuqi and Ifill, who made a few decent runs and contributions, we did not look like scoring. The game turned into a midfield battle, devoid of any shape.

Flinders then had a moment which he would rather forget on 80 minutes as he chased a pass back, he tripped and the ball went out for a corner.

It knocked his confidence and 3 minutes later, his indecision cost us dear as he flapped at a Paul McKenna corner and Kevin Wilson was at the back post to score from 5 yards.

The final whistle brought a chorus of boos from the sparse crowd. Clearly the stayaways knew what was coming and it is a sad day when the FA Cup can muster no more than under half our usual capacity.

The most disappointing aspect of all was that we put up such a lame 2nd half display against a team that we need to start turning good performances against if we are to move up the table.

Taylor must now solve the inconsistent performances that have dogged us all season long, if we hope to make the top half of the table, never mind the play-offs.

Palace: Flinders; Butterfield (Freedman 67), Hudson, Ward, Lawrence ; Green (Ifill 56) , Fletcher , Kennedy, McAnuff ; Scowcroft (Kuqi 67), Morrison.