April 15 2002

Trevor Francis

A change of tactics from Trevor Francis helped guide Palace to three points over Preston and finish their home season on a high.

Andrejs Rubins came on for the injured Julian Gray and was the only bright note in a poor Palace first half. Keeper Alex Kolinko denied Preston with a number of saves.

Francis had brought on David Hopkin at half-time, changing to 4-4-2 and it seemed to spark Palace into life.

He said: “Preston were very good. They had more desire and more energy than us in the first half. We were always on the back foot and our defenders kept us level at half-time.

“The significant change in the second half was the change of shape. We went from a 3-4-3 to a 4-4-2 and took a grip of the game."

Hopkin put Palace in front 10 minutes into the second half and in the 64th minute, Ade Akinbiyi scored his second goal of the season from close range to seal the victory.

Francis added: “The introduction of Hopkin and Rubins also played a big part. We lost two players on Thursday. Dougie Freedman pulled his hamstring and could be out for three to four weeks and Simon Rodger did the same thing in training.

“JOVAN KIROVSKI’s wife went to hospital on Friday to have a baby so we lost him very late on.

“It was our third clean sheet in a row. We’ve struggled at the back this season and conceded a lot of goals.

“I tried to change that when I came here by bringing in some new players at the back, but the loss of Kit Symons and Tony Popovic cost us dear–- you could see the difference Popovic made today.

“We needed a victory for ourselves and it was nice to see Ade Akinbiyi score in front of his own fans.”