Palace 2 - 3 Portsmouth

Saturday October 21 2000 - League

It's getting near crisis point for Crystal Palace as Portsmouth came back from two-down to win 3-2 at Selhurst Park.

And Palace boss Alan Smith blamed the defeat on a refereeing error and his Palace side's mental frailty for this latest setback which leaves them just three places off the bottom.

Former Arsenal winger Tommy Black put Palace in control with two well-taken goals - the first after skipping past three Pompey defenders before curling a 25-yard shot into the top corner.

The second came after Palace's new £2m signing Andrejs Rubins' powerful run and cross was not cleared by the Portsmouth defence and Black was on hand to slot the ball home.

Portsmouth player-boss Steve Claridge was judged to have legally challenged Palace keeper Kolinko and controversially bundled Pompey back into the match on the stroke of half-time.

Thomas Thogersen then outjumped the Palace defence to score with a flying header in the 59th minute to levelk and Mike Panopoulos sealed the match as he was left unmarked to nod the winner with 10 minutes left.

Post match comments

Palace boss Alan Smith said: "Their first goal was a foul on the keeper but that one decision seemed to alter 11 people's thinking - we need to be stronger mentally just to hold on at 2-1.

"This has happened before, we're up in the first half and then in the second half we're losing. It's not acceptable and we need to have guys who are mentally stronger.

"The defending third and attacking third let us down today. At the end of the day I need some tougher people."

Portsmouth player-manager Steve Claridge said: "We were poor in the first half but the goal just before half-time helped us, so we made a few changes at the break and put five in midfield.

"It was important that we started the second half well which I thought we did and we deserved the points."

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