Palace Report

2 perspectives on this one.

On one hand we went to one of our closest challengers in a game most people would happily taken a point from pre-KO. We dominated the game with perfect tactics that stifled them whilst allowing us to play some decent football and create chances. Surely you couldn’t ask for much more.

On the other hand, Raffe (attending his first game of the season) turned round to me after 30 minutes and said this is a really awful game. After telling him that this was about as good as we’d been all season, we realised he was right as well, quality-wise it was a dreadful game.

I think we come back to the view that you can only beat what’s put in front of you and though not pretty it was effective. Blackwell on this occasion had obviously watched Palace and got his tactics absolutely spot on. We played a kind of 4-1-4-1, with Derry sitting very deep and Lewis and Blake getting forward to support Hulse. It worked beautifully, Palace could get nothing going and Johnson kept dropping off in an effort to get the ball and finding Derry blocking the space

After a little flurry at the beginning when Douglas and Butler had a couple of headers saved by their comedy keeper, the game settled into a pattern. Palace would have the ball for a bit but go nowhere and eventually lose it. We’d quickly shift it to Hulse or look for Miller. Although we didn’t create much, we looked much more like scoring when we had the ball and after Lewis had missed an empty net with a far post header, we scored the goal. Miller intercepted a stray pass in the midfield and ran it back at them, he layed the ball up to Hulse who looked like he was going nowhere but then fought his way to the by-line for Blake to bundle in.

Second half was largely much of the same, but we scored early so were largely comfortable. We couldn’t decide afterwards whether the goal was ridiculously easy or a thing of great beauty, probably both, some simple passing in triangles confused Palace, and Miller was left free to run into the area and cross for Hulse to slam home. We didn’t do anything particularly difficult, but in this division you often don’t need to.

Only 2 periods of worry – first from about 75-80 minutes when Palace had a flurry of corners and the ball bobbed around our box for a few minutes before luckily ending up in Sullivans arms. Being the old pro he is, he then lay on the ground for a few minutes to give us a breather. This wound Morrison up no end and a few minutes later he was having a pushing and shoving match with Kelly, the fact that
Dermot Gallagher was ref probably helped them avoid further punishment. Only took him 501 games to get angry with someone.

Other spell of pressure was right at the end, most of the Palace fans had left before McAnuff curled one in, in injury time, we went up the other end and Healy and Hulse nearly made the game safe between them, but as time slowed to a crawl we were indebted to a great block tackle by Douglas as the ball fell at Johnson’s feet in the box.

Despite this a deserved win – I still don’t think we’re that good – but it may be that we’re good enough.

Scores

Sullivan 6 – One fumble for a corner caused a bit of pressure and kicking wayward as ever, but made one fine save when we came under pressure in second half.

Kelly 7.5 – Winger never got past him and always available going forward.

Crainey 6.5 – One of his better games.

Butler 7 – We played deep enough that he was rarely turned and thus was able to do what he’s good at, muscling attackers out of the way to head clear.

Gregan 8 – Probably as good as he’s been for us, happy to clear anything played into his area and some decent distribution from the back.

Derry 7 – Got booed a bit, but did his job which was integral to our game plan.

Douglas 8 – Put his foot in and disrupted there play, also got forward well but lacked the pace to get clean through on a couple of promising situations – great tackle at the end.

Miller 9 (With the ball), 5 (without it) – Still our best threat, scares defenders when he runs at them and can pick out a pass, still bottles out of tackles though.

Lewis 6 – More of a defensive role, but stuck to his job well.

Blake 7 – Also did his fair share of tracking back, keeps possession well, even if we all know he’s just going to run one way, turn and run back again, defenders seem to fall for it.

Hulse 8 – Still looks half-fit and laboured at times but can’t argue with a goal and an assist.

Matt

P.S A good post match list meet taking in various pubs in different parts of London. For those who went to Stockholm last year, I got Raffe and Dave hopelessly lost in a dodgy part of Camden in retaliation for the 4am route march through the snow they forced us to endure last year.