Limp Palace are Villans of the piece

January 12 2016

Wayne Hennessey

A very lacklustre Crystal Palace were sunk 1-0 at the Premier League's basement side Aston Villa.

Wayne Hennessey's blunder – where he let Joleon Lescott's header squirm through his hands and into his own net – proved decisive.

The victory was the Villans' first since the opening day of the season, while Alan Pardew's side have now gone four league games without a win or goal.

It could have been so different had Wilfried Zaha's shot not struck the post after just 42 seconds from Jason Puncheon's pass.

Palace had further opportunities as Bakary Sako blasted a powerful shot over and Damien Delaney diverted Yohan Cabaye's free-kick just wide of the upright.

Jordan Ayew was a constant threat for the Villans and went closest to scoring for the hosts with a shot that struck the side-netting.

Pardew brought on Connor Wickham at the break to give Palace, who were without a recognised striker, a focal point with Sako toiling to little effect.

Libor Kozak's deflected effort forced Hennessey into a decent save before the Wales No.1 made an awful howler on 58 minutes when he spilled Lescott's weak header from a corner.

Scott Dann headed off target as an out-of-sorts Palace crashed to a deserved loss on the road.

Villa: Bunn, Lescott, Cissokho, Bacuna, Okore, Gueye, Veretout, Westwood, Gil (Clark 89), Kozak, Ayew.

Not used: Lyden, Richardson, Gestede, Sinclair, Richards, Guzan.

Palace: Hennessey, Delaney, Souare, Ward, Dann, Ledley (Wickham 45), McArthur (Jedinak 78), Cabaye, Puncheon, Zaha, Sako (Chamakh 62).

Not used: Kelly, Campbell, Mutch, Speroni.

Alan Pardew: "A lot of things went wrong. We lacked energy, we lacked quality, one of our poorest displays of the season. Villa really deserved their victory - they worked so, so hard.

"We couldn't find an offensive link-up. Wayne Hennessey will obviously be disappointed with the goal - he got himself in a mess. But he's been terrific for us and that's the nature of goalies."

Remi Garde: "We suffered so much in the previous weeks and today we are very happy. Definitely the players showed pride and we deserved to win.

"We won only 1-0 but we created many good opportunities. We earned our luck by being very aggressive on the ball. We didn't sit back after we scored, we tried to score a second. We had a very good attitude.