Cov v Palace match report

Palace went to the Ricoh looking for their 1st away win off 2012, against Coventry who had won 5 of their last 6 home games. Attendance of just over 12,000, good 800 or so Palace fans and we started with an unchanged line up from Saturday for my local game.

After 3 minutes Martin was felled in the box, and despite Coventry players claiming it was outside the area, Ambrose stepped up and blasted the ball into the net to give us an early led.

We looked sluggish and only had a couple of chances. An Ambrose free kick was goal bound and took a deflection wide, and Easter was put through on a couple of occasions but was as usual a yard off the pace and muscled off the ball. Coventry dominated possession, had 3 or 4 shots saved by Speroni, 1 tipped round the post brilliantly from a shot be Richard Keogh, and they had 5 or so corners.

So at half time, Palace not been great, Coventry had been trying to get back into, but as the optimistic Palace fan, we often are poor in the 1st half and improve in the 2nd half, so all would be good. And how wrong was I.

The 2nd half was not good for Palace, we just did not flow. Murray was one for Easter early in 2nd half and he was nearly in after a quick free kick, but it was saved by Murphy in the Coventry goal. Murray won headers but had no support, and nearly created a chance for himself after challenging Murphy but the ball went out of play.

At the back we were not clearing our lines, our midfield was at 6’s and 7’s and it was all getting very scrappy. Coventry dominated possession in the 2nd half and the equaliser was no surprise, when Cody McDonald drilled home with 11 minutes to go. We were blessed with the fact Coventry were poor or it could have been a very different score line.

Palace had no urgency and did not come into life until the last minute and injury time and then pushed forward won 2 corners, but it was all a little bit too late.

So it finished one all. It was very much a team playing for nothing and a team desperate for points. Coventry support was shocking, hardly any noise and was surprised they did not get behind their team when they scored. Their team also looked like a team in all sorts of troubles, arguing with the referee, several penalty appeals from nothing and some terrible passing. They may struggle to stay up that performance.

We were poor, had only a handful of shots and did not really look like we were going to score. Our midfield was poor and a lot of the team had off days. A draw was probably a fair result and its to be a mid season finish for us.

The Palace team
Speroni – Good saves, could do anything about the goal.
The back 4 – Looked disorganised and not as solid as normal. At times we could not clear the ball and it was all very scrappy.
The midfield – Ambrose was by far the best of them. Garven and Jedi both poor, and Wilf had a off day, did not get into the game and was starting to get frustrated and react to tackles, Was not good to hear fellow Palace fans being quite so critical off him, he is still learning and they all have off days. The midfield did not push up much.
The attack – Martin, still not sure what Dougie sees in him, would much prefer to see Sean playing, Easter was a yard of the pace, Murray bit better but had no support from the midfield.