New Year Cheer for Palace

The Eagles launched themselves into 2007 with a fine win over Norwich, with all the goals coming in the first half.

Despite the scoreline and a comfortable second half, the early parts of the game suggested a very different likely outcome as Norwich took the game to Palace.

Despite only conceding one goal in three games, Peter Taylor elected to break-up the succesful centre-back axis of Darren Ward and Mark Hudson and throw Leon Cort, back into the fray, moving Hudson to the right to deputise for the out-of-sorts Danny Buterfield. Apart from a couple of early scares, caused primarily by comminication problems between Cort and the ever-improving Scott Flinders, the change thankfully caused no real disruption.

Twenty minutes in and Darren Huckerby managed to hit the bar from an acute angle, Norwich then stepped up the pace with Carl Robinson and Huckerby testing Flinders again and Gary Doherty haeding over when it seemed easier to score. However, five minutes on, they were undone but a really soft sucker punch. A game of head tennis in the Norwich box saw Hudson nod a close range effort with the Norwich defence playing statues.

Four minutes later another defensive nightmare allowed Dougie Freedman in to square to Shefki Kuqi, who finished with some style. Right on the break,
Norwich appeared have received a lifeline when Mark Hudson was harshly adjudged to have handled by a continually erratic referee. Robert Earnshaw despatched the penlaty off the underside of the bar, rather luckily, but the revival was very short lived. In injury time, good work by Kuqi set-up Stuart Green who rifled a superb drive into the roof of the net catching everyone unawares. The nest interplay was perhaps even more unexpected as Kuqi and Green had been at each others throats earlier in the half, when Green tried to pull Kuqi away from Huckerby’s winding-up. Despite the slide-rule pass, in was clear that Kuqi still hadn’t quite forgiven his team-mate as he refused to join in with his celebrations.

Norwich came out for the Second half looking a deflated and defeated side, none of the running or industry that marked their best spell of the first half. The only real animation from the Budgies seemed to stem from the bench where their manager, Peter Grant, seemed to be on the point of blowing a fuse with his lack-lustre side. Scott Flinders was rarely troubled and when he was looked calm and assured. A completely different persona to the nervous youngster we’d seen before Christmas.

A comfortable win, spoiled only by a shockingly poor referee and an injury to Marco Reich, that will keep him sidelined, just when it seemed he was finding some form again.

Palace: Flinders, Lawrence, Ward, Hudson, Cort,Reich (McAnuff 46), Hughes, Fletcher, Green,Freedman (Morrison 74), Kuqi. Subs Not Used: Wilkinson, Scowcroft, Kennedy.

Goals: Hudson 26, Kuqi 29, Green 45.

Norwich: Gallacher, Drury, Shackell, Doherty, Colin, Huckerby,Safri (Thorne 90), Etuhu, Robinson (Dublin 53),Hughes (Croft 60), Earnshaw.

Subs Not Used: Lewis, McVeigh.

Goals: Earnshaw 45 pen.

Att: 16,765
Ref: C Boyeson (E Yorkshire).


Posted by neil