August 25 2001

Crystal Palace

The Eagles were beaten by four goals to two by Nottingham Forest, despite a brace by Dougie Freedman. Palace came back from 2-0 down, but Forest scored two further goals to seal a 4-2 victory.

The home side took the lead after 17 minutes when David Prutton headed the ball past Alex Kolinko.

Four minutes later, Forest doubled their lead through Stern John who took advantage of poor marking in the Palace defence.

Dougie Freedman, who was booed by the home crowd pulled one back for The Eagles on 28 minutes. The Scot headed the ball past Forest keeper Darren Ward from a Tommy Black cross.

Five minutes after the interval, the same Freedman put the sides level from 10 yards after being set up by Finnish international Aki Riihilahti.

Palace then went on to win the game, but a defensive mistake by Steve Thomson in the 72nd minute gave Forest's Marlon Harewood the chance to curled the ball superbly into the top corner.

On 83 minutes, it was Jamie Smith with a defensive error enabling John to score into an empty net from five yards.

Nottingham Forest: Ward, Brennan, Doig, Louis-Jean, Hjelde, Bart-Williams, Williams (Johnson A 76), Prutton, Jenas, Harewood (Lester 87), John (Reid 90)

Subs not used: Roche, Edwards

Bookings: Jenas 31, Brennan 78

Palace: Kolinko, Berhalter, Popovic (Kirovski 82), Smith, Mullins, Black (Rodger 69), Thomson (Rubins 76), Riihilahti, Gray, Freedman, Morrison

Subs not used: Gregg, Austin

Bookings: Freedman 33

Post-match comments

Crystal Palace boss Steve Bruce was not happy with his side's defence.

He said: "It was probably a good game to watch but sadly for us we have to defend better.

"We can't go on defending like that. The higher up the league you go the more you can't afford to make basic errors.

"But fair play to them, they went on to win the game.

"Individual mistakes are costing us badly. We are playing very well as a whole but their third and fourth goals were down to bad individual errors.

"We have got a lot of quality and a young, young squad. We scored 13 goals so far in four games but we can't expect to have to keep on scoring all the time to win.

"And at the moment that's what we are having to do."