November 2 2008

Ben Watson

Crystal Palace dropped 2 more points at a sodden Selhurst Park with a 1-1 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, writes Simon Pophale.

After the hugely disappointing result against Nottingham Forest, Neil Warnock rang the changes putting Victor Moses and Nick Carle on the bench, giving Shefki Kuqi his first start since March and bringing in John Oster.

The club was marking this weekend as a Halloween Saturday and the players also started to play their part as they served up a first half horror show in defence.

Wednesday took the lead on 7 minutes when a Lewis Buxton cross was deflected into the path of Sean McAllister, who teed up Leon Clarke on the edge of the area and he fired past Speroni from 15 yards.

From that moment on, we looked shaky in defence. A high ball from Marcus Tudgay saw Fonte and Lawrence wait for each other and Leon Clarke nearly nipped in for a second, although this time Speroni was alert to the danger.

Misplaced passes and with a first choice back line unsure of themselves, Wednesday were having the majority of the possession but did not create many clear cut openings. Marcus Tudgay dragged a shot wide, otherwise Speroni was left rather untroubled.

We saved our best for the start and end of the half. Ben Watson curled a shot wide in the very first minute and right at the end of the half, Paul Ifill shot from the edge of the area, Lee Grant pulling off a rare save.

The 2nd half was completely different though and we managed to haul ourselves level within 10 minutes of the restart.

The hauling was done by Mark Beevers who manhandled Kuqi and from the resultant penalty, Watson scored with a low drive.

Minutes later, Watson nearly doubled the advantage as he broke into the box but while his first touch saw him with only Grant to beat, his second was laboured and Grant smothered at “Prince Harry’s” feet.

While we were in the ascendancy, chances were still at a premium and Kuqi fired over a great chance on 67 minutes, after being set up by John Oster.

Brian Laws’ brought on Akpo Sodje and Jermaine Johnson, in order to try to find an answer to our attacking play. Wednesday were on the back foot and despite the appalling conditions, there looked like being only one winner.

We could have won the game as towards the end of the game, Sean Scannell, on for Beattie, brought a great save from Grant with his legs as our young Irish winger was denied from 5 yards and Calvin Andrew, back after injury and who replaced Kuqi, failed to connect with an Oster cross as time ran down.

We might have been cursing our luck, had Johnsons late effort not hit the bar, but a draw was a fair result and explains why both these sides occupy lower mid-table positions.

Palace: Speroni, Lawrence, McCarthy, Fonte, Hill, Oster, Watson, Derry, Ifill, Beattie (Scannell 78), Kuqi (Andrew 88).

Subs Not Used: Carle, Moses, Ertl.