September 23 2007

Mark Hudson

Crystal Palace managed to register their first home win of the season, writes Simon Pophale.

Peter Taylor, seemingly feeling a little pressure after our recent slump made one change to the team that drew 1-1 with Coventry on Tuesday, giving Paul Dickov his home debut alongside James Scowcroft with Dougie Freedman on the bench.

The first half was pretty non-descript in way of chances. We controlled the game and Sheffield United had only 2 real efforts on goal that had Speroni troubled. Jon Stead had a run and shot on 17 minutes and Leigh Bromby had an effort which Speroni comfortably beat away.

Up front we showed little of what we were capable of and Scowcroft and Cort had headers following set peices, but neither could get anything on target for Paddy Kenny to worry about.

It ended goalless at half time but we were looking comfortable.

The second half opened with Cort conceding a corner under pressure from James Beattie and the resulting corner saw Keith Gillespie put in a cross which was cleared back to the former Northern Ireland international, whose whipped ball back into the box saw Mark Hudson slice it into the top corner past a bemused Speroni.

0-1 and was it going to be the same old story as previous matches?

Taylor had a change to make and brought off Stuart Green for Dougie Freedman on 54 minutes. Whether it was planned or enforced, it was an inspired move.

On 59 minutes, Craig passed to Freedman whose run into the box culminated with a ball to the unmarked Tom Soares, who drove the ball into the back of the net to bring us level.

Yet better was to come, as on 67 minutes Freedman and Craig combined again down the left and Craig's cross found Carl Fletcher whose effort was deflected off Craig Morgan and into the back of the net via the post giving Kenny no chance.

Three points were on the horizon and our first home win was in our grasp. So, when an innocent ball forward from Leigh Bromby saw James Beattie get the better of our defence and chip Julian Speroni on 75 minutes to bring the scores level at 2-2, few would have been forgiven for thinking that here was another home match where we threw the points away.

Fate had one final twist in this pulsating second half as Kevin Friend, so often an object of vilification in past matches for us, lived up to his name as on 88 minutes as he awarded a penalty after Morgan fouled Fletcher in the box.

Ben Watson, who had a fine match, capped it by beating Kenny from 12 yards to win the match. Freedman was man of the match, after a virtuoso performance which inspired us to the 3 points.

We had to endure 4 minutes of injury time but at the final whistle, the away fans had disappeared as we celebrated our first home win of the season.

Palace: Speroni, Butterfield, Craig, Hudson, Cort, Green (Freedman 55), Watson, Fletcher, Soares, Dickov (Hughes 82), Scowcroft (Idrizaj 85).